


Lava Girl and the Ink Drop

by Snegurochka



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-05
Updated: 2008-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:10:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snegurochka/pseuds/Snegurochka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Ink Drop was the best-kept secret in the nightclubs of Wizarding London. Werewolves, or those close enough, could work out their sexual appetites on willing submissives looking for a rough ride, and nobody had to get hurt. The system generally worked best when the werewolves stayed clear of each other, but someone forgot to tell the new girl about that.</p><p>36,000 words. NC-17 and then some – for sex, violence and the foul language of werewolf subcultures. Bill/Lavender. Past Remus/Bill. Quite a bit of Fleur. Several werewolf OCs. July 2008.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lava Girl and the Ink Drop

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Very violent (but consensual) sex, including some ravishment fantasy. Open marriage. DH-compliant. Het, slash and femslash included at various times. Tattoos. Everyone is over 17. Thanks to islandsmoke for the final beta, and to florahart for some early advice and for reminding me months ago that Lavender Brown was mauled by Greyback at the end of DH.

_Saturday, 11:56 p.m._  
Lava Girl walks – no, tiptoes – down Knockturn Alley, her eyes narrowed and her nose in the air. She can smell them. The doors of the businesses along the alley are locked and barred for the night, and the pulsing music she can feel through the soles of her feet hasn't escaped into the black air around her. They won't come out, not yet, and she can't fucking figure out where they're hiding, but she will. She has to. They're the only ones who can help her.

* * *

Far below Knockturn Alley inside the cavernous walls of the Ink Drop, the music throbbed right through Bill Weasley's skull. On a normal night it would have irritated him to no end; he would have charged outside and shouted at the Muggle teenagers with their portable machines on their shoulders, or Wizarding teenagers with their portable wireless boxes Levitated in front of them, shaking his fist and promising to call their parents if they didn't shut the fuck up. Bill Weasley was twenty-eight years old, had a satisfying job, a modest house and garden, and on most nights, _normal_ nights, he would prefer to have a look through the evening _Prophet_, clean his teeth and fall into bed with his wife at half ten.

This was not a normal night.

The music bled into his skin and electrified him, feeding his impulses and pushing him forward through the throngs of gyrating bodies filling the dance floor. He was tall enough to see over most of the crowd, and he scanned the outer walls for the shy types, girls with long hair covering their faces or slender boys with eyes nervously darting around the room, biting their lips and rethinking their exit strategies.

Those were the ones he went after.

There was a time when he'd wanted a bit more push and a hell of a lot more fight to it all, but those days were over. Now he made do with the shy ones, the wispy little things that hugged the edges of the room as though they hadn't in fact left their knickers at home, paid the cover charge and waltzed through the front door of the place on their own two feet. Coy little bastards, the lot of them. They were all the same, though. They all came here to get fucked, hard and rough and with all the aggression of a werewolf bite behind each thrust.

Bill ran his tongue along his teeth, considering, before finally making his choice. A boy tonight. _That_ one, in fact, sipping a gin and tonic from a trembling glass against the back wall, dark hair framing fine features and large, bright eyes. He looked scared shitless. Bill smiled to himself, finishing his beer and striding around the edges of the dance floor until he reached the boy. He passed a few others along the way, all wearing the standard Ink Drop uniform for his kind, a black vest and trousers, and he met their gazes steadily, with no fear.

Only one tried to block him.

"I've got an eye on that one," a voice growled at him as a meaty hand splayed across his chest. He followed the man's eyes to the target Bill had spotted earlier, now only a few paces away, and then turned back to the man, sizing him up. Bowden. Fucking hell.

"Then you should have stepped up sooner. He's mine now," he muttered, turning his back on the man. Blood was running too hot all through this place tonight. He didn't need a confrontation.

A hand dug into his shoulder and spun him around again. "You watch your fucking step, Weasley," snarled Bowden, "or you'll be back to fucking rats in the forest at full moon. Don't you fucking forget that I only ever let you in this place as a favour to Lupin. No Lupin, no Weasley." He snapped his fingers, sour breath fogging over Bill's face. "Just like that. Do we understand each other?"

A flash of rage surged through his body, but Bill gathered all his strength to push it down, working his jaw and curling his fingers into a fist and then out again. "Yeah," he bit out, his teeth clenched. "We're clear." It wasn't worth the fight anymore. "I'm going to go fuck that kid now, if you don't mind," he added, tilting his head to the side.

Bowden glared at him for another long moment before a smile tugged at his dry lips. "No more wolves for you, eh?" he drawled, the smile deepening when he saw Bill shifting his feet. Fucker. He released his hold on Bill and clapped him too hard on the shoulder. "Make him bleed, then," he said nastily, heading off in the other direction as Bill closed his eyes and sought to regain his control.

He continued towards the boy with the gin and tonic, stopping in front of him at last, his hands in his pockets and his left shoulder slightly turned towards him. He flexed the arm a little bit and gazed steadily at the boy.

"Are you new?" he asked, keeping his body still and his face impassive.

The boy gulped, clutching his drink. "I– oh. Hi. Is it that obvious?"

When Bill didn't reply, the boy kept rambling.

"Yeah, okay, I've never done this– I mean, I've _done it_ before, of course, but not like– um. I just came with–" He paused, pointing across the room.

Bill didn't look.

"Well, my friend wanted me to come, so I–"

"So, the answer is yes," interrupted Bill. God, Silencing charms should be required of these idiots along with their cover charge. But then again, half the fun of this was fucking them so hard they had no _choice_ but to shut up eventually, so this part was only a brief hiccup to be endured. The kid had got past Jake and Simon at the door, obviously, so he must have been able to prove he was serious about this. Bill pushed his loose hair off his left shoulder, folded his arms and watched the boy's eyes flick down from the scars on his face to the ink on his upper bicep.

"Yes," the boy whispered, licking dry lips.

Bill refrained from moving towards him. Yet. "You know what this means?" he asked, nodding down at his shoulder.

The boy's eyes were still fixated on it. He nodded.

"You know what I am?"

He finally raised his gaze, his cheeks flushed. "Yes," he whispered again.

Bill paused, unfolding his arms and closing the remaining distance between them at last. He planted flat palms on either side of the boy's head, leaning in. "And you know it's full moon tomorrow night?"

He felt the shudder that ripped through the boy's body as his bright eyes widened even more and he nodded again. "God. Yes."

"Good," said Bill, taking a second to breathe in deeply, the scent of fear and arousal dripping off the boy.

"Um. My name's Mi–"

"I don't care," said Bill gruffly. "You won't care, either, once I'm done with you."

The boy closed his eyes and whimpered.

"You got a room, or do you want it right against this wall?" Bill dropped his arms. It would be last decision this kid would have to make tonight.

"Here," he breathed immediately. Well. Someone had already given this a bit of thought. "Just, maybe around the corner a bit."

Bill glanced to the side, pausing to watch a blonde girl on her knees nearby, moaning around a mouthful of werewolf cock, before grabbing the boy's arm and hauling him off the dance floor to the marginally more private corridors leading to the back rooms. "I don't waste time with blow jobs," he muttered, before throwing the boy into the wall face-first and holding him there.

"No, I– that's okay. I want–"

"What?" Bill's hand ground against the boy's shoulder blades as he leaned forward, grazing his teeth gently over the soft, pale skin of his neck. "What do you want?"

"I want to–" he gulped – "say no?" he finished in a small voice, pushing back against Bill's body.

Bill dropped a hand to his groin and pressed in hard, his dick already swelling at the very thought of what the boy was proposing. Most of them were like this at the Ink Drop, but not all would go the full mile, playing the submissive role to perfection like this. "Yeah, all right," he said, not willing to let his arousal show too much yet. "So, you shouldn't walk these roads by yourself at night," he added with a growl, sinking into the role. "All kinds of creatures out here, could do a lot of harm to a pretty little thing like you."

"No," the boy whispered, turning his head to the side. "Please, don't do this. I can give you money, if that's what you want, or–"

"I don't want your fucking money." Bill moved one hand up from the boy's shoulder blades to the back of his neck, squeezing, and dropped the other to the cleft of his arse, digging his fingers in even through the boy's jeans. "I want to fuck you till you bleed," he whispered, watching the boy's face briefly crumple before he regained his composure.

"I'll have you arrested," the boy stammered, but his eyes were all but rolling back in his head at the press of Bill's fingers.

Bill sighed. The new ones could be brilliant sometimes, young and pliant and oh so eager to please, but at other times, they were a pain in the arse: nervous and jumpy and absolute shit at role-playing.

"I'll– my uncle's an Auror!" the boy continued. "You won't get away with this!"

Oh, honestly. "Shut the fuck up," spat Bill. "The only words you're allowed to say are, _No_–" he paused to clench his thumb and forefinger further around the back of the boy's neck – "or _Stop_–" he drew he word out, mocking it, as he ripped the boy's jeans open with one hand and shoved them down his thighs – "or, _It hurts_." His fingers rammed into the boy's cleft, dry but for the scarce beads of sweat, and began to scratch at him.

The boy sagged against him, clawing at the wall. "Oh my God," he breathed, pushing back against Bill, who had all but lost his patience now.

He tore his own trousers open and pulled his prick out, engorged tonight beyond its usual size and aching with the needs of the wolf. As usual, he'd performed all the necessary protection spells before arriving. "That wasn't one of your fucking choices," he growled, dragging his tongue over his palm and making sure the boy could see him do it, before slathering it around his dick, dropping one hand to pull him open and the other to shove inside.

The boy cried out, mashing his cheek against the wall, and Bill groaned as he felt the kid tear around him. Fuck, yes. He brought a forearm up to lodge across the back of the boy's neck, vertebra digging into his flexed tendons as his hips snapped against the boy, pulling back and pushing forward again with grunting escalation.

"Stop," the boy whispered. "It hurts."

Bill groaned deep in his throat, biting down on the boy's shoulder until he tasted blood. "Say it again," he ordered.

"No, stop," the boy complied, a breathless moan escaping his lips. "No. It hurts."

"This is how werewolves fuck, little boy. You'd better fucking remember that next time you're out in the dark by yourself. We're out here, and we want to fucking tear you up."

"Oh, God," the boy breathed, dropping his arms like a rag doll as Bill dug both hands into his hips and hauled him back over his cock, feeling the limp body acquiesce with each punishing thrust.

"Are you bleeding?" whispered Bill, his voice laced with ice. "Does it fucking hurt yet?"

In response, the boy grabbed his own dick and began to pump, his head nearly hitting the wall. "Hurts so much. Oh God. Fuck."

The boy's pleasure wasn't really Bill's concern. In fact, it wouldn't smell right if he let the kid get off before him. He needed the fear and resentment, not the arousal. He swatted the boy's hand away. "Don't enjoy yourself," he murmured in the boy's ear, his hair falling loose and sweaty over the boy's neck, before his teeth bit down and the boy gave a shout, pounding his fist into the wall.

"Fuck. _Fuck_."

It was almost real fear now, almost what he needed. Bill pulled him back hard, watching the blood ooze down his ear and the flush creep up his face, stained against the dark eyelashes and rosy lips. He wanted to mar all that perfection, rip it to shreds and come all over it and watch his hot semen seep in dirty pools over this creature's perfect skin. He slammed forward once more, his dick pulsing in sharp waves and his hands bruising the kid's hips.

The boy was silent as Bill pulled out, too quickly and with enough force to tear him even further. Bill paused only long enough to wipe the fluid off his dick and haul his trousers back up his hips, fastening them and casting one last glance at the boy. He had sunk to the floor, his knees pulled up and his breath coming in gulps, but his dick was still hard between his trembling fingers, as he rode out the remnants of his arousal by himself.

"Wait," he called as Bill turned to go.

Bill paused, not turning around.

"That was– _God_. Can I– I mean, do you come here a lot? Maybe we can– again sometime– if you–"

Irritated, hungry, and still feeling unsatisfied, Bill simply gave a wave of his hand and strode off across the club, needing the cool outside air on his face.

* * *

_Sunday, 1:49 a.m._  
Lava Girl pulls her knees up to her chest and tries to imagine her arse is not frozen to the fucking sidewalk. Drunks begin to stumble around her as some of the clubs empty of all but the hardest party-goers, but she keeps her chin tucked under and none of them bother her. She pushes her hair out of her eyes just in time to see a man with long auburn hair stride angrily up a subterranean flight of stairs to street level across the alley – a flight of stairs that disappears as soon as he reaches the main road, she notices with widening eyes – and shove his hands in his pockets, kicking at random stones as he passes by. Lava Girl's eyes dart back to where the staircase was. She might not have shagged Ron Weasley back at school, but she did enough with him to recognise his hair and freckles from fifty paces. That red-head isn't Ron, but there is one other Weasley she can think of who would be skulking around Knockturn Alley in the middle of the night a day before the full moon.

Her knees cracking and her patched robe falling to her ankles, she rises and follows him.

* * *

Back at Shell Cottage, Bill pushed the door open as quietly as he could and made his way to the shower. He left his clothes in a pile on the floor and stepped under the hot spray, scrubbing his body and his hair and squeezing his eyes shut against the soap and dirt swirling together off his skin and down the drain. Towelling off quickly and tugging a comb through his hair, he pulled on a pair of shorts and crept into bed.

"Mmm," Fleur murmured, turning to her side and absently touching his arm, her eyes still closed.

"Shh," he whispered, settling in beside her and stroking the hair off her forehead.

"What time is it?" she mumbled through dry lips.

"Shh, doesn't matter. It's late. I'm home now."

She smiled a bit, stretching on her back and finally opening sleepy eyes to gaze at him. "How did you do?"

He considered that. "Fine," he said at last, his mouth turning down.

"You do not look fine." She squinted at him. "Maybe you should have stayed longer. Tried another." She laughed softly and pulled him down for a kiss.

He let his lips brush against hers, resisting the urge to deepen it, to straddle her and pin her down until she stopped struggling, and then to – _Fuck_. No. He swallowed, pulling away. "Yeah. Maybe I should have. He was a bit... inexperienced."

"Ah," she said, closing her eyes again. "_He_."

Bill scrubbed at his face. "Yeah."

She turned to her side again and snuggled into his chest, her voice sleepy. "I like this idea," she murmured. "I will dream about it now, you know – my big, bad wolf with that _he_, doing everything you need to do to him."

Bill swallowed back a moan as the image of the boy underneath him flashed across his mind again, and he let his body pulse for just a second at the thought of everything he had _wanted_ to do to that boy, but had held back. "Love you," he whispered to his wife instead, his lips brushing her ear, and she hummed softly.

"Mmm. I know."

* * *

_Sunday, 8:06 a.m._  
Lava Girl rolls over in the grass outside Shell Cottage, still Disillusioned as she stretches and gets her bearings. A Weasley. Ron's brother. The one with the scars. She glances up at the house and sighs. So, it's true: he's one of them, the wolves that she has only heard about in whispers, the ones who have formed a secret society for fucking. Well, there is no other word for it, not from what she's heard. Even as she thinks it, her body heats up and her cunt starts to ache. Bloody hell. Not now, dammit. But it's been like this since the attack at Hogwarts, and even though this is only her fourth full moon, she already knows what to expect.

She crawls over to a set of bushes and crouches to piss, dark and murky since she's not had fresh water since the day before yesterday. It doesn't matter. She doesn't care. Her body only cares about one thing today, so she might as well get started on it. Moving out of the oppressive sunbeam and into a shady patch by a tree, she lies flat on her back and lifts her knees, pulling her robe up as her mind fills with images of that disappearing staircase and what must be hidden behind it.

She is already wet as she pictures Bill Weasley and his wolves in their black vests and trousers, biceps thick and chests heaving as they prowl through the dark, waiting to pounce. The ache tears through her body and she wants to scratch and claw at something, mount a massive cock and feel it rip inside her, slamming through her and making her scream. She makes do with her fingers for now, just as she did last month and the month before, her irritation growing because it's not enough, not nearly enough, tiny fingers with trimmed nails that can't possibly do the damage she wants them to do.

She wants Bill Weasley to come out the door of this house and see her. She wants him to stride across the grass and drop to his knees, grabbing her robes and ripping them off. She wants him to shove her legs apart and fuck her up against this tree, his cock deep and hot inside her, stretching her wider than she's ever been stretched and tearing his fingernails down her back while he does it. She wants to feel blood over her skin mixing with the sweat and tears. She wants to grind against him so hard she's bruised for days. She wants to bite right through his lip when she comes, feeling him pound into her and shatter her with his own ravaging orgasm.

She wants... she wants...

Fuck. She slumps back down to the ground, her fingers soaked and her cunt pulsing, but it wasn't enough. Her skin still prickles with dissatisfaction, and as she gazes up at Bill Weasley's front door, she makes a decision:

Tonight, she will finally find out where they have been hiding.

* * *

Bill slept much of the day, as he usually did when the full moon hit. His body always felt just a little bit off that day: muscles too thick and bones too heavy for the surrounding skin. He sometimes had flashes of migraines after visiting the Ink Drop, the pull of the moon combining with all those flashing fucking lights to make his neurons fire in all the wrong ways.

"Here," said Fleur, bringing tea and sandwiches in for him late in the afternoon. "Get up for a little bit. You will feel better." She sat down on the edge of the bed and smiled at him, her hand tracing his cheek.

He sat up and coughed a bit to clear his throat. "Thanks," he murmured, as she kissed him on the forehead. When she pulled back, he noticed her elegant hair twist for the first time, and her silk robes. "You heading out?

She touched a finger to her lips to renew her lipstick colour after the kiss. "Yes. If you do not mind?" She tilted her head to the side, but there wasn't really any way for him to object.

He gave her a lopsided grin. "I always mind," he grumbled. "You know that. Who is it?"

"Ah-ah," she tutted, wagging her finger. "You said you did not wish to know."

He sighed. "Yeah. I did say that." Without warning, the wolf surged through him and his mind flashed on an image of Fleur pinned to the floor with his cock choking her, come seeping out her sealed lips and her hair streaked with blood. He swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut.

"What is it?" she said with alarm. "Are you– oh, nooo, no, no," she soothed as she caught on, cupping his face with both her hands. "Look at me, darling. You will not hurt me. Look at me. Face yourself."

Taking a deep breath, he nodded and opened his eyes. "Yeah." He swallowed again, his throat thick and scratchy. "Okay. Sorry." They might have been together only a few years, but she knew him nearly better than he knew himself, and she knew exactly how the wolf worked.

"It is Guillermo," she said softly. "He wished to buy me dinner, and as it is full moon, I thought it might be a nice evening."

He sighed. "I hate Guillermo," he muttered, rubbing his eyes and grabbing the tea cup like it was a beer stein. "He wants to marry you, you know. What's wrong with, uh, what's her name..." He snapped his fingers a few times. "Genevieve!" His mood brightened, and he licked his lips, leaning in to nuzzle her neck. "Yeah," he drawled. "I like Genevieve, thinking about those long legs wrapped around you..."

She laughed, letting him kiss his way up her neck. "I like Genevieve, too," she purred, giving the name a French pronunciation, "but she is not free tonight."

"No fair," murmured Bill, letting a hand fall down her breasts. "You got to dream of me and what's-his-name last night, but I don't get my Genevieve fantasy?"

"You have plenty of those stored away, I am sure," she said with a roll of her eyes, rising from the bed and clasping his hand. "Lose yourself tonight," she added, her voice lowering from playful to grave. "Anything you want, you are allowed to have it. Remember? It is not a night to hold back."

He shook his head, rubbing at his forehead. "You don't understand. I could really hurt one of those–"

"No, you cannot," she insisted, her hands on her hips. "Those kids go there to be hurt. There are spells to heal them! It is nothing they cannot take, or they would not be allowed in." She paused as he flopped back down in the bed, his lips a tight line. "Hurt them," she repeated, leaning down to brush her lips over his. "Let the wolf out to play. If you don't, you _will_ hurt me."

"Don't even fucking say that," he whispered, shaking his head. "Don't even _think_ about–"

"Hurt them," she said again, her voice icy as she straightened and headed for the door. "I will take care of you tomorrow," she added with a smile, blowing him a kiss before closing the door behind her.

* * *

_Sunday, 11:01 p.m._  
Lava Girl activates a fairly sophisticated – if she does say so herself – Glamour over the scars that cover her neck, shoulder, and up her left jaw line and part of her ear. Her hair is still long and she wears it loose, swinging over her shoulders and helping divert prising eyes away from the Glamour. Dressed as meekly as she could manage – loose trousers and a thin blouse – she approaches the part of Knockturn where she saw the disappearing staircase the night before. She doesn't exactly have a plan – plans aren't her forte, after all. But she curses herself for her lack of foresight as she paces in front of the grey building, her eyes darting up and down the empty alley.

"Come on, you fucking werewolves," she mutters to herself as she turns again and passes in front of the damp stone wall. "Come on. You fuckers – where are you? Come on, werewolves. Come on."

On the third pass, something extraordinary happens. She jumps out of the way just in time, as the pavement cracks and a steep staircase materialises, leading down below the street. Eyes wide, she hurtles down the barely-formed steps and through the creaking door.

* * *

As usual, the Ink Drop was packed with bodies that night, both sides eager to sate their desires as the full moon rose. Bill stood at the bar and drank, casually eyeing the crowd. For the first time in a while, he wasn't sure what he was looking for. The wolf generally dictated it: a boy one night, lithe and pliant, or a girl the next, buxom and gasping. Sometimes he'd take one of each, tying them up and watching them writhe against the bonds as he fucked them one after the other and then fisting himself to hardness a third time, coming over their faces and ordering them to lick it off each other. His dick gave a hopeful throb at the image, but nobody had caught his eye yet.

"Weasley," a low voice rumbled beside him, and he turned to find a man in a uniform like his, the telltale tattoo glinting in the strobe lights over his left arm. He gazed a second longer before turning back to his beer.

"Nash," he said with a nod. "All right?"

"All right," replied Nash, leaning back against the bar beside Bill and hooking his elbows over the edge. "You have a round yet?"

Bill exhaled. "Not yet."

Nash eyed him and started to laugh. "No shit. You're wound tighter than a cunt in a foxhole, ain't you?"

"Yeah, fuck off. What've you had, then?"

"I'm making plans," said Nash, running his tongue along his bottom lip and letting his eyes follow a blonde girl in a short skirt and tight, low-cut top as she sauntered past. She turned her head, pausing in her step, and her gaze swept over Nash and then on to Bill. Her lashes lowered and her lips parted a little bit.

Bill lifted his beer to his mouth again and took a swig, confident that Nash could take care of the girl himself in less than three minutes. He didn't generally go for blondes himself – not in this shit hole, at least.

"This ain't the place for flirtin'," said Nash, pushing himself away from the bar and beginning to circle the girl, his biceps flexing and his eyes alight. "You can go flash your tits to the Ministry cocks over at the Rose and fucking Crown, if that's your game. You don't give two werewolves that kind of look, sweetheart, and expect to keep walking."

Startled, the girl swallowed, backing away from him a bit. Her eyes flew over to Bill, who held her gaze over his bottle. "I might have phrased it a bit different," he said with a shrug, "but yeah, that about sums it up." He paused, letting his gaze fall down her body. "You want to get fucked, love, or are you just here for the cheap drinks?"

"I..." Her face coloured and she swallowed again before tentatively stepping towards Nash and raising her index finger to trace over his tattoo. "I want to get fucked," she whispered, her hand on Nash but her eyes on Bill, and suddenly blondes didn't seem like a category he should exclude. That was as good as a verbal agreement, as far as Bill was concerned. There weren't many rules at the Ink Drop, and if you walked through the door you had to agree to pretty much anything, but to prevent unwelcome groping at any time – and mostly, from Bowden's point of view, to save him a lawsuit – there was a basic rule about obtaining some form of consent before whisking your young thing off and fucking them senseless.

Bill set his beer down and stepped behind her, his hands moving quickly over her hips and down her arse, as Nash caught her from the front, flicking his thumbs over her nipples.

"What do you say, Weasley?" Nash growled, glancing at Bill over the girl's head. "You fuck her arse, and I'll come down her throat?"

The girl's knees shuddered at that, and she sagged back against Bill, breathing hard. He took the opportunity to move his fingers under her skirt and past her thong, pressing none too gently into the cleft of her arse.

"I think I like that idea," he whispered in her ear, his breath hot and his voice low. "She looks like she can take two wolves, doesn't she?"

"Don't know if she can," growled Nash, "but I sure as fuck want to make her try."

Bill shifted his fingers, gathering moisture from between her legs and moving back to her arse again. He pushed in aggressively with one finger barely slicked, and her face crumpled as she bent forward, clutching at Nash's shirt and moaning.

"Hey, not _here_, you fucking animals," the bartender called, as Nash started to open his belt. Bill rolled his eyes as the bartender jerked his thumb towards the back rooms. He glanced back at Nash and nodded, before grabbing the girl's arm and hauling her across the club.

Oh yes, he liked the idea of what Nash had proposed. His body had lit up like a raging fire at the very suggestion of it, being able to corner this helpless-looking thing and fuck her from both ends. He fantasised about shit like this – not just the willing girl underneath him, but the other wolf watching him every step of the way, pawing at the prey himself and maybe even letting his own nails tear Bill's flesh, their come mixing together over the girl's body. He didn't indulge those kinds of fantasies anymore, though. Werewolves – whether the real ones or the close-enough kind like him who mostly populated the Ink Drop – did not do well in each other's company, especially when sex was in the air. They tended to rip each other apart in competition for prey, and nobody liked to clean up messes like that the next morning. It wasn't a _rule_, precisely, but every wolf at the Ink Drop knew that it was in his best interest to focus on the prey and ignore the other wolves.

Things used to be different for him, of course, but that was another lifetime. Bill tried not to think too hard about the way things used to be, and the one wolf that used to indulge his every desire.

He couldn't turn down an arrangement like this one with Nash, though, not on a full moon night. If he wouldn't fuck the man himself – and he wouldn't; there had been no other wolves since Remus that he'd even wanted that sort of thing from – it would be good enough to watch his face over this girl's abused body, watch him fuck her mouth and choke her with come while Bill filled her arse. It was almost enough to sate the wolf completely.

Fleur would be so proud.

"I think she wants an audience," said Nash as they approached the back rooms. He glanced around a corner of the dance floor that was sparsely populated but still rather public, licking his lips and narrowing his eyes at Bill.

Bill's dick throbbed, and he threw the girl down to the floor. "Yeah. I think she does, too." He paused as she took a deep breath and pushed her hair out of her eyes. She looked back over her shoulder at Bill, her eyes hooded, and then up at Nash as he pulled his cock out. "Suck him," ordered Bill, satisfied to wait his turn for a few more minutes, if it meant getting a bit of a show.

Her shy routine flew right out the window as she gripped one hand around Nash's cock and drew him into her mouth. Bill opened his own trousers and fisted his dick, moving his eyes between Nash fucking the girl's mouth, and the way her skirt had hiked up over her arse when she knelt. He resisted the urge to drop to his knees and pound into her. All in good time.

Over the pulsing music, he heard voices shouting across the floor, and a few surprised gasps from club-goers. Another fight, probably – wolves getting too close. He didn't even look, hoping that ignoring it would make it go away, or at least not interrupt his own pleasant situation.

"You want a gilded invitation, Weasley?" drawled Nash, grabbing the girl's hair and thrusting hard between her lips. Her face was flushed but she seemed to be doing all right. It looked from the angle of her jaw like she was using a fair bit of teeth against Nash's dick, so, hell, who knew, maybe she just wanted the chance to give a proper, rough blow job without her boyfriend whinging, _Ow! Stop it!_ at her technique every five seconds. Couldn't blame a girl for that.

He was just about to drop to his knees and shove inside her when a group of people jostled around him, knocking him off balance a bit as he stumbled into the wall. "Oh, what the fuck?" he spat, shoving his dick back in his trousers and rounding on them, but they had already moved past, forming a small circle with others in the crowd and cheering whatever was going on in the middle of it. "You want to get the fuck out of my space?" he shouted at the nearest wolf, swatting at the man's beefy shoulder to spin him around to face Bill.

"Fuck off," the wolf growled, shaking Bill off. "Not every night you get a show like this." He glanced behind him at Nash and the girl, who still seemed unaware of the commotion. "Beats your little tea party down there."

"What, wolves fighting over twat?" Bill forced a laugh. "Nothing I haven't seen before."

The wolf raised his eyebrows. "The twat's the one fighting the wolf," he drawled, a grin spreading over his face as he pointed to the centre of the circle, jeering onlookers still pumping their fists and shouting at the participants.

Bill paused, glancing back over his shoulder at Nash and shrugging off his questioning look, before wading into the crowd and straining for a look at the problem. Fucking eldest child syndrome: he could never help getting in other people's business, especially if it meant breaking up a fight.

"You want to fuck me?" a voice screeched as he got closer. "Come on, then. _Fuck me_, arsehole. Fuck me till I fucking bleed. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"Then lie down on the floor and fucking _take it_, cunt," another voice growled back, deep and annoyed. "If I wanted a fight, I'd try to fuck my wife."

Laughter rippled through the crowd. The music dimmed, and the voices became louder as more people from the dance floor crowded around the pair. Bill worked his way to the front just in time to see a slight girl launch herself at Bowden, one of the biggest wolves in the room as well as the club's owner and alpha. She was wearing only knickers and a ripped blouse, and catching him off guard, she was able to wrestle him to the ground and straddle his hips. With one hand around his throat and the other working his trousers open, she pulled his bulging cock out and shoved it underneath her body in a matter of seconds, dropping down on top of it like it was a toothpick.

Bill stared, his mouth open and his blood searing hot.

Bowden shouted out and scratched thick nails down her thigh, but her grip around his throat held, and Jesus fuck, she was strong, because he couldn't get up. She began to ride him hard, pumping her thighs and lifting herself off of him only to slam back down again, grinding against him. Her free hand clawed down his chest, tearing at his vest and drawing blood.

"You fucking cunt," he managed through rasping breaths. "You want to get torn up? Fucking keep it up."

With that, she punched him in the face. His head hit the floor and rolled to the side, and a trickle of blood emerged at the corner of his mouth. "Shut up," she screamed. "Shut up – shut up – shut _up_." She kept punching at him, battering his chest and face with her small fists, all the while riding his cock hard and fast. He struggled against her, twisting his hands against her breasts or trying to choke her, but she kept going. At last, she sucked in a deep breath and stilled, her thighs tense and her fingers clenched in the flesh of his chest, and watching her bliss from the sidelines, Bill could almost feel her hot pulses over his own dick.

He shuddered and briefly closed his eyes, trying desperately not to come in his trousers.

As the crowd's surprise wore off and the girl's strength was tempered by her orgasm, Bowden succeeded in throwing her off and flattening her on her back on the floor, his friends moving in to hold her arms and spread her legs.

"Was that fun, little girl?" he growled, wiping the blood from his mouth. "Did you get off on that?" The other wolves laughed as Bowden directed one to rip the rest of her blouse off. "Now it's my turn, you little bitch," he added, settling between her legs with his cock still hard and dripping. She tried to kick at him, and he responded by closing a massive fist around her throat, his fingers curling up her jaw. "Lie still, little girl. The big, bad wolf is going to teach you a lesson about _manners_."

"See if I fucking care!" the girl was shouting, her legs still struggling. "Go ahead, then. Do your fucking worst. I can take it. I can take any of you! Fuck all of you, you fucking–"

"All right, Christ, someone get her up," Bill heard himself saying, shoving a few others aside and making his way into the centre of the circle. "This is horse shit. She ain't worth your time, mate," he said carefully to Bowden. "Simon! Get her the fuck out of here," he called over his shoulder to the bouncer. "She's not our kind."

The skirmish heated up again as Bowden rose to his feet and stuffed his dick in his pants, staring Bill down with wild eyes. "Weasley, you fuck," he bellowed. "You want this piece of twat? You fight me for her."

Bill steeled his jaw, reason warring with the bloodlust of the wolf in his veins. "No, I don't fucking want her," he began. "Throw her out on the fucking street. She either submits, or she doesn't get past the door – you know the rules. Why are you wasting your time with this shit? Go get yourself a real bird. Hell, there's one back there I was just about to fuck up the arse." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "She fucking loves it; hasn't said a word and sure as fuck hasn't punched me in the fucking face, yeah? You can have that one; I don't even fucking care."

Simon worked his way through the crowd before Bowden could respond. He grabbed the wolf's arm and hauled him off. "All right, boss?" he said, and Bowden shook him off, wiping his mouth.

"Yeah. This little bitch ain't fucking worth it."

"Go fuck somethin' else, mate," said Simon, nodding in sympathy, and with a last growl in Bill's direction, Bowden made his way through the crowd with his friends. "And you," continued Simon, closing his fingers around the girl's wrist and dragging her up off the floor. "Get your kit on and get the fuck out of here." He leaned in close, spittle flying from the corners of his mouth. "If I see you here again, I'll rip your fucking face off." He shoved her roughly away, and she stumbled towards Bill, the rest of the crowd dispersing with shaking heads.

Bill watched to make sure Bowden was still heading away from the fray, and then he scrubbed his face with his hands.

"So, you're Bill Weasley."

"What?" He turned to see the girl in front of him. "Yeah."

"Hi."

"Uh, yeah. Hi. Look, what the fuck do you think you're doing? You can't fight like that in here, like a–"

She ignored him, also ignoring the fact that she was standing there in ripped knickers and an open blouse. "I've been trying to meet you, actually."

He paused. "There are other ways you might have gone about it. A Floo call, say, or stopping by for tea." He folded his arms, glaring down at her. "Who the fuck _are_ you?" A wounded look passed over her face, as though she'd been expecting him to know exactly who she was, and Bill tilted his head to the side, studying her. As he looked closer, he narrowed his eyes. Wait a fucking second. Grabbing his wand from his back pocket, he held her to the spot with one hand on her shoulder while the other touched the wand to her neck. He murmured a string of words, and the air around her body shifted, perfect skin melting away to reveal a mess of fresh scarring over her jaw, neck and one shoulder.

"Fuck off!" she whispered fiercely. "I'm already thrown out of this place – you want to get me eaten alive, too?"

He ignored her. "Holy shit," he said in awe. "You're that girl from Hogwarts."

"Weasleys," she muttered, her eyes darting around as she pulled her long hair over the scars. "Geniuses, the lot of you."

"My brother said you'd got hurt," continued Bill, still staring at her in wonder. "I've been looking for you. Where the fuck have you been?"

Her paranoia seemed to melt at that, and her face relaxed into a brilliant smile. "You have?"

"I tried to find you at St Mungo's after the Battle, but they said you were gone. Couldn't get your folks to answer an owl, either. What, did they send you off somewhere to recover?"

"Recover." Her face darkened, and her eyes dropped to the floor. "That's one word for it," she muttered, but a second later, she brightened again. "But you were looking for me? Really?"

He shrugged. "Figured we'd have something in common, and maybe I could help out." He paused. "I used to know someone, a much kinder man than I am, and he always stopped to help a fellow werewolf whenever he came across one." He cleared his throat, pushing down a surge of old feelings. "Pretend I was honouring his memory or something, looking out for you." He stared at her for a long moment. "I have to say, though: Greyback never usually went for girls."

She rolled her eyes. "Well, no, obviously not, or you lot wouldn't be such raging dickheads about letting a girl in, now, would you?" She glanced over at Simon minding the door again and snarled. "There are plenty of girls, though. We just–" She stopped suddenly, her face clouded in panic.

"What?"

She swallowed, pushing her hair back. "Nothing. We're somewhere else, is all. Anyway, look, it doesn't matter. Professor Trelawney always used to say, what's in your tea leaves is just in your bloody tea leaves, right? Not much sense in trying to change your fate. Now, as for letting girls in." She folded her arms, glaring at him. "What are you going to do about that?"

"Is that what you– that was–" His mouth dropped open as realisation hit. "You're like us," he said flatly, more to himself than to her. "You want to fuck at the full moon, is that it?"

She stared at him, before drawing her lower lip under her teeth, wet and slow, and stepping closer to him. Her thumb brushed over the ink on his upper bicep as she gripped his arm, and she stood on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. "Not just fuck," she murmured. "I want to _bleed_ at the full moon. I want to tear something up, fuck it so hard it can barely limp away from me afterwards. And then?" She paused, biting at his neck. "I want to grab it while it's hurt and pull it back to me and fuck it _again_, until it's crying and bleeding and begging me to stop."

A surge of desperation and arousal shot through him at her words, something he hadn't felt in months, not since – well. Fucking, bleeding hell. He took in a shuddering breath, trying to ignore the way her fingers on his arm had ignited every bit of fire in his body.

"Isn't that what you want?" she whispered, her lips moving down his neck and arm until her tongue swept over his tattoo, and it took all the strength in him not to throw her down to the floor the way Bowden had done.

"I want even more than that," he admitted, pinching his thumb and forefinger around her tiny wrist and holding her still. "I want that _thing_ to fight me every step of the way, until I'm crying and bleeding and begging right along with it. But I don't think you're going to find that here," he added, glancing over her to the space of floor she'd been pinned to. "As you now know." He released his hold on her, lightly shoving her away from him as he turned and wiped a hand across his mouth, trying to regain control of himself.

"Are you still fucking here?" Simon's voice cut through Bill's thoughts, and he turned to find the bouncer with a meaty hand around the girl's arm, hauling her away. "I thought I told you to get the fuck out."

"Come by Shell Cottage tomorrow," he murmured quickly to her, not even sure what he was saying. All he knew was that he needed to be near this girl again, and he needed to know what _she _needed. "We should talk more... about how you're doing."

She cast him a faint smile before letting Simon drag her through the club and out the door, and as Bill watched, he couldn't stop her words from repeating on an endless cycle in his head.

* * *

_Monday, 3:23 p.m._  
Lava Girl approaches Shell Cottage in the best robe she could find – after rummaging through the bins outside Madam Malkin's. She is unaccountably nervous and angry with herself for it. What does she expect to happen, after all? Bill Weasley is married, she reminds herself, not to mention the brother of one of the worst relationships of her life, if it can even be called that. Her body has calmed since the night before, and she no longer feels the blinding urge to rip her clothes off and climb into his lap, so that's a bloody relief, but she also just wants him to like her enough to actually talk to her. No one has really talked to her in four months.

She raises her fist to knock at the door and decides that maybe, just for today, she should put Lava Girl aside. She can bring her out again later, when the sun goes down, but for this afternoon, for tea with Bill Weasley, maybe she should just be Lavender.

If only it were that easy.

* * *

"So, you can start by telling me if you're all right," said Bill, his voice gruff as he sat her down at his kitchen table and poured her tea. He eyed the girl as he set the pot down. Her hair was matted and she clearly hadn't showered after their night at the Ink Drop, and her robe was much too nice to match the rest of her, although it was too short in the sleeves and a style that went back several years.

She shrugged, but more in resignation than in arrogance. "Yeah, I guess so. Nothing much for it, is there?" The corners of her mouth turned down, and for a second, Bill thought she was going to start to cry. Jesus fucking Christ, that was all he needed. But a moment later, she had steeled herself and looked up. "I mean, were you all right afterwards?"

Bill didn't hesitate. "Nope. Not for a long time. But I had Fleur and my family, and a job to be getting on with. Not much time for self-pity."

"Well, me neither. No time for that." She swallowed, squaring her shoulders.

He regarded her, resisting the urge to push the lanky hair out of her face. "Okay, well, the next question would be: why aren't you back at school?"

She blinked, considering. "Well, I suppose the Carrows taught me everything I need to know last year." Her face twisted into a grin, and for a brief moment, the shy girl with the trembling lower lip faded away, and the sly confidence of the wolf pushed forward. "It's obviously _much _too traumatic for me to go back there, isn't it?" She leaned back in her chair.

Bill watched her over the rim of his cup. "I can't imagine you learned a bloody thing in that clusterfuck last year. Everyone else in Ron's year went back." He set his cup down.

"Good for them," she muttered, lowering her eyes to the table, and Bill sighed.

"Well, look. What do your parents say? Maybe I could talk to them, or go see McGonagall for you? It's only October; I'm sure we could still get you enrolled, if you–"

"_No_."

He stopped at her vehemence, his lips still formed over his next words. Rubbing his forehead and searching for a way to get through to her, he gazed over at her. "Lavender," he began quietly, "I know it's hard. Look at me." He sought her eyes until she finally raised them, sweeping them over his scars and then down his chest. He shivered a bit at the intensity behind her gaze but pushed the feeling away. "I know what it's like to walk around like this." He waved a hand in front of his face. "I know what it's like when people stare. But you can't hide forever. There's enough of us now; people know who we are. Greyback and his wolves were on such a rampage during the war that just about every family knows a bloke who got bit." He caught himself. "Or a girl, I guess. Point is, no one can give you shit unless you let them."

Her eyes softened and she tilted her head to the side, as if longing to believe his words. "Wolves out in the open," she murmured. "Proud. Tattooed for everyone to see. I heard about your kind, back in the– Well. Before." She reached across the table with trembling fingers and pushed the sleeve of his t-shirt up, touching the dark icon over his upper bicep. She paused for a long moment, breathing softly through parted lips as her eyes remained fixed on Bill's ink, her chest rising and falling more and more rapidly. "I want one," she said at last.

"You– well, okay, we can talk about that." He pulled his arm back from her touch, sealing his lips together to fight the jolt that had spread down his arm and through his chest at the sweep of her fingers. "We should probably talk to your parents, though, and it'll take some doing to smooth it out with Bowden at the club. It's his decision, whether you get one or not, and you didn't make a very good impression on him last night."

As he spoke, he could see her face harden like a block of granite, her entire demeanour shifting from quiet and vulnerable back to the arch-backed ball of nastiness she'd been the night before. "First of all, don't fucking mention my parents again, got it?" Her hands clenched into fists over the table. "Second of all, that was the alpha I fucked last night? Well, well, well." An icy grin spread over her face as she sat back in her chair. "Guess I know how to pick 'em, don't I?"

"He wasn't too happy with you. Not sure I'll be able to get him to–"

"Oh, he'll be easy." She threw her hair over her shoulder. "He just wants to fuck me, doesn't he? On his terms, that is." She shrugged. "I can do that." The air crackled as she talked, and Bill began to feel something he hadn't felt in a long time: the heat of two wolves rising through the room, haunches up as they began to circle each other, even while sitting in a kitchen having tea. His spine curled and his fingers began to itch.

"Maybe it's not up to you," he found himself saying, his usual logic and reason flying out the window. "Maybe you're new to this pack, and you should watch your fucking step."

She slowly licked her lips, her gaze locked on him in challenge.

"_I'll_ decide if you get to talk to Bowden again. _I'll_ decide if you can get inked, get to come back to the club as a member."

"Will you, now," she drawled, and he pushed down the impulse to punch the grin off her face. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes for a second, he fought to get his own mind back.

"Where are you living?" he asked, attempting to redirect the conversation to something less volatile.

She shrugged, glancing around the kitchen. "Thought I could stay here for a bit," she answered, her chin still raised in challenge. "I hear you and your wife wouldn't mind the company."

His mouth opened. "You what?"

"I'm awfully good at fucking," she added, the wolf still clearly dominating the girl underneath. "You saw that last night. I'd earn my room and board. Bet your wife wouldn't even notice – well, unless I fucked her, too."

He leaned forward, stunned. "I advise you never to mention my wife again."

Her eyes narrowed. "Or what?" she dared him.

After a long, pained intake of breath, Bill struggled to let all the anger evaporate from his pores with the exhale, just as Remus had taught him. He inhaled again, breathing slowly and methodically, visualising the air cleansing his body of the knots of rage this girl was causing. When he felt stable again, he glanced up to find her watching him with an amused expression, her arms folded over her chest. "Do you need money?" he asked slowly, trying to regain his role as mentor to her. She was Ron's age, for Christ's sake, still a kid. He could deal with her the same way he dealt with Ron or Ginny when they were in a strop.

She tensed, taking an angry sip of tea. "I said I'm all right," she muttered. "Is this why I'm here? Look, I can take care of myself. You fucking saw that last night." She held his eyes, her own flashing in challenge. "You saw me pin an adult male werewolf to the floor and fuck his brains out, and now you want to send me back to the fucking Charms classroom? Dates to Hogsmeade with pretty little boys who want to hold my hand?" Her voice rose as she talked, and she ended with a sneer, her lips tight. "Thanks a lot. And here I thought you might actually be able to help me." She shook her head and set her cup down, rising from her chair. "See you around, Weasley."

"Sit down," muttered Bill, irritated and fascinated by this creature. "I do want to help." He drummed his fingers on the table and stared over at the kitchen counter, avoiding her eyes. "Tell me what you need."

"What I need?" She stormed around the table and grabbed his chin between her thumb and forefinger, forcing his gaze. "I need wolves," she said slowly, and the electricity of her simple touch sparked through his body again. "They've kept me away from them for months now, trying to fix me, but I got out, and I'm not going back. I don't need fixing." Her hand moved up the side of his face and into his hair, curling into a fist and yanking. "Wolves," she murmured in his ear. "I need to know where they are, and what they do, and most of all..." She scratched the nails of her free hand lightly down his neck and into the collar of his shirt. "...I need to fuck them _blind_."

Bill held himself perfectly still, his heart pounding and his dick swelling with each word out of her mouth. This was not what he'd had in mind when he'd volunteered to talk to the girl. All his attempts to control his temper were quickly sliding away. "Rule number one," he said to her, his voice low. "Wolves shouldn't fuck each other, little girl. You saw that last night. Go down to the shop on the corner and find some blushing virgin to take you home. Ride him till his dick falls off; he won't know what hit him."

Growing bolder, she pulled on the hand fisted in his hair and tilted his head back, just as she climbed onto his lap and straddled his thighs. Her teeth scraped his throat, and the closer she came, the more her unkempt appearance seemed less offensive to him and more feral. He breathed in the scent of her and still struggled not to move, the unwashed wave of aroused werewolf flooding his senses. "I don't want a blushing virgin," she murmured into his neck. "You were watching me last night," she added, her teeth light on his jaw. "Tell me you didn't want to be flat on your back like that, fucking me as hard as you could while I tried to claw your eyes out." She ground down against him, and that fucking did it.

"This is a dangerous game you're playing," he growled, grabbing her hips and thrusting up against her. "I don't fuck other wolves. Don't push me on this."

She was silent for a moment before her voice slid down his spine again. "That's not what I heard," she whispered, her knickers wet and soaking through the bulge in his trousers. "I heard you used to have your very own wolf to show you the ropes – a _real_ wolf, too, not the fake kind like you and me. I heard he used to fuck you so hard, you'd–"

A flash of rage surged through his body, and in one swift movement, Bill rose from the chair and threw her off of him. She stumbled to regain her footing, her back slamming against the fridge. "Shut the fuck up," he spat, pointing a finger at her. "You don't have any fucking clue what you're talking about."

"No?" she challenged. "How about your wife, then, huh? Would she think I'm lying, if I told her what I know about _wolves fucking_? Or– oh, wait." Her eyes narrowed. "She'd be too busy getting her twat plugged by your banker friends to care, wouldn't she?"

He had to punch her in the face. He _had _to, there was no way around it. His fingers clenched into a fist by his side and pulled it back, adrenaline racing from his chest down his arm, boiling under his skin and firing the rage in every cell of his body. She braced herself as if expecting the blow, her head down and her jaw set, and breathing deeply, mustering all the reserves of control he could, he released his hand and let it fall by his side. He panted, a sweat breaking out on his brow as he stumbled back from her, turning and planting his hands on the kitchen counter. "Get out," he muttered.

She didn't move, and he could hear her breathing softly behind him, raspy and quick, as though she had just run a ten-kilometre race. After a long pause, a quiet, trembling voice shattered the silence. "Don't make me leave," she whispered.

He lifted his head at last and looked over his shoulder at her, suddenly shrunken to half her size, cowering against the fridge with her arms wrapped around her body.

"Please, don't," she begged with an audible, gulping swallow. "Everything's different since the Battle. I've nowhere to go. My mum doesn't want me, no one will talk to me..." Her eyes welled, and she clenched a fist into the front of her robes, just over her heart. "And my body... I can't control it sometimes. Things like this, it just..." She waved her free hand in front of her. "It says things. It wants things. I didn't mean to–" A sob slipped out, but she bit back a second one. "I'm sorry I said those things," she whispered. "I didn't mean to. They just came out."

Bill stared down at the counter top.

"Please. You're the only person alive who can help me."

Bill let out a deep breath, slow and steady, and closed his eyes. "I can't talk to you like this," he said quietly. "I don't know whether to fuck you or kill you right now, and neither of those things is going to be much good to you." He took another long breath, letting his chest expand with soothing air and then exhaling it out slowly, his nostrils flaring as he fought for control. "I'll tell you this much, kid: the temper is something you have to live with now, and so is the fucking. Being around you like this isn't doing much for _my_ grip on those things, you know."

"I'm sorry," she whispered again. "Don't kick me out."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, mashing his lips together, and then pulled open a kitchen drawer. He grabbed a handful of Galleons littered under the spoons and stretched his hand out to her, dropping them into her shaking palm. "Go to the Leaky Cauldron for the night," he said quietly. "Get some food and have a bath. Don't go anywhere _near_ the Ink Drop, do you hear me?" He watched her carefully as she nodded, clutching the money. "Rub yourself raw on the bedpost for all I care, but do _not_ fuck anything, okay?"

She nodded again, her lip quivering.

"I'll come see you tomorrow and we can talk."

She left without another word, stumbling over her own feet in the hallway, and only when he heard the door click shut behind her did Bill finally collapse into a chair at the kitchen table, his head in his hands.

* * *

_Monday, 5:06 p.m._  
Lava Girl sits on the sidewalk outside the Leaky Cauldron, staring up at the swaying sign with itchy, swollen eyes. What's the point of having superpowers if they bring you nothing but misery, she thinks. It's almost worse than being back in that cage, hungry and tired and with nothing but her own insanity for company. He was supposed to understand. Why didn't he understand?

* * *

Bill debated staying home that night. He'd got cock blocked the night before by Bowden and that mad bloody girl on fucking _full moon_ of all nights, and his hormones were all out of sorts. He didn't trust himself not to hurt those kids at the best of times, but when his blood was already hot and the full moon had barely receded behind a single wispy revolution of the earth, he wasn't sure he could control himself.

But then again, that might be all the more reason to go out.

Fleur glided down the stairs and into the kitchen as he was pondering what to do. Dressed elegantly in slim-fitting silk robes and with her long hair loose over her shoulders, the very sight and scent of her filled his body with desperate longing. He sucked in air through his mouth as she moved towards him to kiss his cheek.

"So, tomorrow morning, you said?" she asked him, her palm on his chest. "What do you think, about ten o'clock? I will be home by then. We can go to the Leaky Cauldron together." She sighed, leaning into him as he wrapped a single arm around her waist and pulled her to his chest, resting his chin glumly atop her head. "That poor girl."

Bill's lips were tight. He'd told her about Lavender, but only the basics. He hadn't told her the worst of what Lavender had said, or the worst ways his body had responded to her. "Yeah," he said, but when she moved to lift herself away from him, his fingers shot out to circle her wrist, and in a split second, he had pinned her back against the kitchen counter.

She smiled, lifting her head as he lowered his mouth to her neck.

"You smell good," he lied. She smelled like soap and perfume, the wrong sort of smell. He needed her to smell like blood and fear, and he closed his eyes against the pulse in the back of his head, the one that demanded he _make_ her smell like that.

She laughed softly, pushing him away. "No, I don't," she said, tilting her head up to kiss him. "I will see you tomorrow." She made to move past him, but still he held her to the spot. Her eyes flickered down to his hands around her wrists, then back up to his face. "Bill," she said evenly, swallowing. "Let me go."

"What if you stay here tonight?" he murmured, seeking her neck again. "What if you stay _right_ here, right on this counter, and you spread those pretty legs for me?" He slid a hand down her robes and groped between her thighs, his dick beginning to harden at the thought.

"Do not speak to me like that," she whispered, shards of ice and fear in her voice. "That is what you say to your whores, not to your wife."

He didn't even hear her. "You can be my whore tonight," he pressed, tilting his hips up against her. "You're the one I want. Get wet for me, sweetheart. Let the wolf show you how a real man fucks. Fucking Guillermo can't make you scream, not like I can. I know he can't. Let me fuck you till you fucking bleed." He grabbed a fistful of blonde hair and smothered his face in it, inhaling the scent of her and letting it fire up his blood. He could come all over it, he imagined, smearing fresh wolf semen through her hair and down her breasts, making her lick it off his hands and –

"Do _not_ speak to me like that," she repeated, louder this time, and Bill was so caught up in his fantasy that he found himself flattened back against the fridge with her wand at his throat before he could react. Her eyes flashed and her chest heaved with angry breath. He closed his eyes and cursed himself. "I will have sex with you at any time you wish, in any manner. You are my husband, and I desire you above all others."

His chest deflated as she spoke, the words almost a recitation after all the times she'd had to say them after he first got bitten. She knew exactly what he needed to hear when he got like this.

"I am going to see Genevieve tonight, darling. You must go to the wolves and do your fucking, let your body do what it must, and I will make do with something softer tonight while I wait for you." She reached up to kiss him again, her wand still digging into his throat. "Your body requires hard things, blood," she continued, her lips still brushing against his. "Mine requires soft things, romance." Her pretty face melted into a smile. "Tonight, we shall each get what we require, and next week, when the full moon is gone entirely, I will take you back to bed and fuck your brains out."

She said this against his mouth, and he couldn't suppress the groan that rose up. She didn't speak to him in his own language very often, the language of the wolves, but when she did, when she uttered the word _fuck _in her clipped English like that, it was enough to make him come on the spot.

"But not tonight," she concluded. "Not when you are like this." With a final push of the wand tip into his flesh hard enough to bruise, she whirled around and strode out of the kitchen.

He heard her gather her things and exit out the front door before he closed his eyes and tried to breathe normally again.

* * *

Bill stormed up to the entrance to the Ink Drop, already covered in sweat and desperate to fuck something. He passed it three times, muttering the activation phrase, and then hurtled down the stairs when they appeared.

"Hey, wait a minute," Jake said to him at the door, pressing a thick palm against his chest. "Simon," he called over his shoulder. "This the one with the girl?"

Simon shoved a man in wolf uniform through the door with a punch to the shoulder before turning to them and eyeing Bill. "Yeah. That's him. Weasley, what the fuck?"

"Come on, mate, I just got caught in the middle," said Bill, spreading his hands out to plead for leniency. "Have I ever caused you trouble before?"

Jake rubbed his jaw, considering.

"Boss's orders, Weasley," said Simon. "You're out."

Oh, no fucking way. "Simon, come on," Bill tried again, turning to the older man. Jake was still too fucking new to know even half the history and politics of the place. "You fucking know me. You knew me back when Lupin first brought me here," he added, hating himself for even having to drop that name. "We go way back, mate."

Simon sighed, raising his eyes to the sky. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Good man, Lupin. You ever miss that motherfucker?"

Bill forced a grin, clapping Simon on the shoulder. "Every fucking day, and every fucking full moon."

Simon laughed. "Fuck, I remember you two, shagging like fucking animals every night." He ran his tongue over his bottom lip, appraising Bill. "Best show in town, that was."

Bill leaned in closer, a lurid thought flashing across his mind. He wet his lips, considering his words. They could either get him laid or thrown out of the place for good, if he wasn't careful. "All you'd have to do is submit, sweetheart," he drawled in Simon's ear, his hand light against his arm and his voice only half-joking. "I'd fuck you so good, you'd forget your own name."

"Submit!" Simon threw his head back and laughed again. "Fucking hell. You never fucking submitted to Lupin, you cunt. Can't believe there weren't more eyeballs on the floor in the morning, the way you two'd claw at each other."

"Yeah, but that was the old days."

"Yeah, yeah." Simon waved his hand. "Fucking pity, that. Best show in town," he repeated, shaking his head sadly.

Bill curled his fingers around Simon's bicep, moving in even closer until he could feel the man's body heat up, their chests nearly pressed together as he nudged Simon's stubble with his jaw and murmured in his ear. He might not get another chance like this, and Simon could be useful to him now. "Bowden treating you all right?" he whispered, tilting his hips up against Simon to make his meaning clear.

Simon's breath was hot against his neck, and Bill could tell the man was considering his words carefully. "I get twat when I want it," he replied, pushing back a bit against Bill's body.

Bill nodded, his nose brushing Simon's ear. "Yeah, twat's nice. Soft. Wet. Not much fight to it, though, is there?"

"You said it yourself," said Simon. "Fighting's for the old days. Bowden wants the pain sluts to pay his cover and come back every night for more, and they ain't doing that if they see wolves eatin' each other's fucking hearts out in the middle of the place, yeah? Got to have one that'll submit these days."

"Submit, yeah," breathed Bill, his free hand falling down to cup Simon's crotch. He glanced over his shoulder to see Jake busy admitting other clients, and in the low light of the entranceway, no one really cared what Bill and Simon were getting up to. "I still fight, you know," he added, curling his fingers around Simon's balls and tugging up hard. "Haven't fucked a wolf since Lupin. Maybe I'm overdue."

Simon grunted out a suppressed groan, thrusting up into Bill's hand. "Boss'd fucking kill me, you know," he said with a low laugh, dropping his head to Bill's shoulder.

"Ah, but it'd be worth it, wouldn't it?" said Bill, working his hand harder up Simon's cock. He decided to take even more of a chance. "I used to see you watching us, me and Remus," he said in a low voice, slipping with the first name. "Watch you get off on him fucking me raw in front of everyone. You were always so fucking brilliant, trying not to touch yourself, not to come. Must have been a nightmare."

Simon moaned, sounding miserable. "Don't you fucking know it. That mad fucking bastard. You know what it was, the night I _really_ almost had to punch both your faces in and come all over you? That night he first brought the fucking whips. You remember that?"

All the blood in Bill's body dropped to his dick in about two seconds at Simon's words, and he had to close his eyes to get control of himself. Of course he fucking remembered that. He'd been trying to forget it for months, but getting flogged and then fucked by an alpha like Remus was something that tended to leave a pretty good sense-memory imprint. "Yeah, you liked that?" he choked out, trying to keep his voice even.

"Fucking hell," moaned Simon. "Blood everywhere, and the _smell_ of it, just fucking rolling off you two. Brilliant, mate. Fucking brilliant."

Bill tore Simon's trousers open and shoved his hand inside, his mouth still hot on the man's ear. "You want to make me bleed?" he whispered, his fingers already slippery on Simon's leaking prick. "Anytime, mate. You find a whip you like, and I'll get down on all fours for it."

Simon grunted, his head falling back against the brick wall as he thrust into Bill's hand.

"But I need something in return."

Simon slid his tongue over his teeth, shaking his head as a grin spread over his grizzled face. "Yeah. 'Course you do." He paused, his eyes narrowing on Bill even as his prick jerked in Bill's hand. With a groan, he ran a hand over his face and nodded. "Go on, then."

"Need to get that girl some ink, Simon," said Bill, not wasting any time on preamble. "Greyback ripped her up just like the rest of us. If she doesn't get a wolf cock up in her a few hundred times at full moon, you might as well kill her. Just the same as the rest of us, but with a cunt instead of a dick. Have some fucking pity."

Simon pulled back a bit, his mouth open. "That girl last night? She's a fucking wolf? Come on! No fucking way. I didn't see no scars."

"Glamoured 'em."

Simon stared at him. "A _bird_? You're mad. Fucking Greyback was a dick eater, mate. Everyone knows that."

"Then she must have got in between him and some dick, didn't she? All I know is she got torn up; she's the same as us." Simon's brow creased, and Bill took advantage of his silence to slide his thumb over the man's prick. He shuddered, closing his eyes.

"Fine. Fuck, yes. She's a wolf. Fine, okay. God and fucking hell, Weasley. Your arse ready yet, or what?"

"Not yet." Bill lifted his hand back, and Simon sighed, punching the brick wall behind him.

"Fuck. Christ." He glanced back at Bill. "You serious about this? You want her inked?"

"Talk to Bowden for me?" Bill kept his hands off Simon but leaned in once more to bite at his earlobe.

With a shuddering sigh, Simon nodded. "Christ. All right. Wait here." He turned and strode in the door to the club, hauling his trousers up as he did, and Bill exhaled a slow breath, turning to tap the shoulder of the bloke just passing Jake at the entrance and begging a fag. He didn't smoke often – even the wolf wasn't interested in that shit – but he felt he deserved one now.

Leaning back against the brick wall and lighting up, he watched the regulars filter into the Ink Drop, miniaturising their robes and stuffing them in back pockets while they pulled their black vests on and grinned at each other, the telltale wolf tattoos gleaming off their shoulders. Even Remus, for all the power he'd had with the packs up north, didn't think to mark them that way. He'd been too close to the Order, and ink like that looked too much like a Dark Mark to him. Bill lifted the fag to his lips and inhaled deeply, feeling the smoke wash through his body.

"That's all we need," Remus had muttered to him once, when his work for the Order had finally led him to Bowden's pack, living in the underworlds of central London. "Creatures and Dark servants, all marked the same way. Might as well strap furry ears to our heads, too, and hey, why not a pair of fangs? The Ministry will round us all up in no time with marks like that on us."

But for all his protesting, Bill soon learned that there were many things Remus hadn't told him. Remus may not have been tattooed, for instance, but he was no stranger to Bowden's world in general and the Ink Drop in particular. If it had started as information-gathering for the Order, by the time Bill began to join him there, some years later, even he could see that Remus's interest in the Ink Drop had developed well beyond professional obligation. He'd grown to need the place, the same way all wolves did, whether they were full-blooded, transforming werewolves, or one of the hundreds of young men that Greyback had abortively mauled, leaving them without full werewolf status but with all the same appetites and tempers.

"I think you're ready," Remus had said to him one night, a flash of intensity in his eyes, about two months after Bill had been attacked. They had spent time together nearly every day, most of it with Remus teaching Bill how to control his splashes of rage and how to obtain the best cuts of red meat for a wolf appetite. They had only recently begun to discuss his other needs, as Bill finally broke down at Remus's constant questioning and admitted, with averted eyes, that he'd had an erection since the night before that wouldn't ease, no matter how many times he wanked. That night, just before the full moon, Remus had led him along a deserted strip of Knockturn Alley and down the emerging staircase.

As soon as they had pushed their way inside, bodies thronging at the entrance, Remus had yanked his shirt over his head and turned to Bill, one hand cupping the side of his face, fingers curled tightly in his hair, and kissed him in a way Bill had never been kissed before. Remus pulled back only long enough to move them further inside and rip Bill's own button-down shirt open, before shoving him up against a wall and devouring his mouth again.

"Wanking won't cut it anymore," he'd breathed to Bill, biting at his lips. "Wolves need to fuck – hard and often. That's lesson number one."

Bill's cock had spurted to completion before he'd even processed where he was or what was happening, grinding up against Remus in a dark corner of the club with strobe lights flashing through his skull and the thick fingers of a werewolf scratching over his balls. Stunned, his mouth gaping open and his body fully sated for the first time in months, he had simply crushed his mouth to Remus's once more, biting and tearing at every inch of him until they were both hard again. Bill had thought about men before, but only in passing fantasies that had never amounted to very much. It soon became clear to him that the wolf's needs weren't going to differentiate by cock or cunt.

"Get used to it," Remus had murmured in his ear as if reading his mind, a wicked grin in his voice, "and don't over think it. The wolf only cares about smells and actions, not body parts. You'll want to fuck anything now, anything and everything, and it's better for everyone if you don't think about it, don't try to deny it – just _do it_."

It wasn't that easy, though. He already loved Fleur by that time, more than he'd ever thought it was possible to love another person, and when he'd stumbled home in the early hours of the morning after that first introduction to the Ink Drop, he'd vomited on the bathroom floor at the thought of what he'd done to her.

It turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to their relationship.

"Bill," Remus had said to him solemnly when he'd voiced his concerns later that week, still too afraid to admit the truth to Fleur. "Let's think about this. She's a part-Veela, right?"

Bill had nodded, throwing two fingers of whisky down his throat and feeling miserable.

"How many men does she sleep with in a given week?"

Bill's mouth had fallen open. No one was supposed to know about that. He hadn't figured anyone would understand, since polyamory wasn't exactly widespread in the wizarding world. "Uh." He'd chewed on his bottom lip before deciding that if he couldn't trust Remus, he probably couldn't trust anyone. "Maybe two or three? But it's not really a weekly thing. More like monthly, something to do with her cycle..."

Remus had nodded, apparently unsurprised by this information. "And how many women?"

Again, Bill had opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again, considering. "Fewer," he'd admitted, "but still, uh, more than zero."

"And how do you feel about that?" Remus had pressed, his face kind even as the blood hardened in Bill's veins and his hands clenched into fists.

"I hate it," he'd whispered. "I want to rip their dicks off, every single one of them."

"Mm," Remus had agreed, sipping his drink. "And how do you think she'll feel about you sleeping with other people? For the benefit of the wolf, of course." He'd given Bill a pointed look, and after an initial moment of shock as he put the pieces together, he'd laughed.

"I think she might be fucking over the moon about it," he'd said, running a hand over his face. "_Shit_, mate. Yeah. Okay. So, you think this might actually help us, then?"

Remus had shrugged. "That's up to you two. Depends whether you really want to be together. If you do, then you'll both find a way around this. Monogamy is just a cultural invention, after all."

Bill hadn't been entirely sure about that, nor had he been sure that Remus's new girlfriend would be pleased with his logic if she ever found out about it, but it suited Bill. Fleur had indeed been interested in this new development, and since working out his wolf aggression on Remus's body had helped Bill control his baser urges around her, she'd quickly agreed that while their hearts remained with each other, their bodies could pursue their necessary paths. It didn't hurt that she generally enjoyed hearing about his exploits, especially with other men, when they were alone in their own bedroom between the moons and he would whisper stories about the Ink Drop in her ear while thrusting inside her.

As he'd grown accustomed to his new life, Bill had immersed himself in wolf culture, learning everything he could about its history and politics. The tattoo was a mark of freedom, he'd eventually argued to Remus, who had only mashed his lips together, shaking his head.

"It only identifies us as animals," he'd insisted, but Bill wouldn't be swayed.

"The _opposite_," he'd said, tugging at Remus's arm. "It's not the Ministry marking us, or You-Know-Who or anyone else. It's _us_. Nobody will ever be able to mark us again if we've already marked ourselves." He'd been to all the underground political rallies and organisational meetings and had absorbed their rhetoric like an organism starved for oxygen. "The Ministry, they don't _want_ us marked. Makes it seem like we're too organised. Scares them. We do exactly what they don't want, and we beat them at their own game!"

Remus had smiled at his enthusiasm, running tender fingers through his hair and pulling him in close, but no matter how vehemently Bill argued the point, Remus never did take the ink. To that day – until Lavender had sneaked in, rather – Remus was the only wolf Bowden had ever allowed into the Ink Drop without a mark, and Bowden had only done so out of grudging respect for a fellow alpha who kept his authority to his own packs up north, never challenging Bowden's in central London.

Bill finished the fag now, still leaning back against the cool brick of the club's outside walls, and he dropped it to the street and mashed his boot over it.

He turned to see Simon emerging from inside, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "All right. He'll talk to you. He don't like it, but he'll talk. That's somethin', right?"

Bill smiled at him, clapping a hand around the back of his neck. "Good man, mate," he said in a low voice, moving towards the door. "I owe you one."

"Damn fucking right you owe me one," Simon called after him. "You know exactly what you fucking owe me!"

Pushing through the throng of bodies over to Bowden's private booth in a corner, Bill breathed a sigh of relief. As much as he hated to admit it, Lavender had been right: she couldn't go back to Hogwarts, at least not yet. She needed to learn to manage her condition first, learn about her needs now and the best ways to fulfill them, and more importantly, she needed to take control of her own identity as a wolf.

To do that, she needed the ink.

* * *

_Monday, 11:28 p.m._  
Lava Girl is curled up on her side in her bed at the Leaky Cauldron, eyes closed but twitching as a dream she doesn't want to have sweeps across her brain. The bars loom in front of her, seeming to tower up twenty storeys on all sides, blocking all her exits and reducing her to a quivering heap on the floor of the cell. A voice wafts over her, cold and clinical.

"Well, she's asleep now, thank Merlin. Thought she was going do some serious damage before I could get her the potion! My word, the new werewolves we see these days..." There was a clicking of a tongue against the roof of a mouth. "Dangerous animals, the lot of them."

A new voice now, low and trembling. "But they said she's not a full werewolf. She won't transform. Why is she..." A sob, quickly swallowed. "Why is she like this?"

"Well, I've got no medical tests to prove it, but I have my suspicions." The first voice dropped to a whisper. "It's the way the schools are these days, Mrs Brown. Kids are sexually active so young, those loose dormitory rules just provoking them. You know, when I was at Hogwarts, there was no way a girl could get up those staircases to the boys' rooms! My word, my word." More clucking. "Be honest, now: was Lavender sexually active before the bite?"

"I... I don't know," came the whispered reply. "She wrote about boyfriends sometimes, but I never met any of them. I assumed she was behaving well, acting like a lady. I raised her best I could, you know. All by myself, never had help. She used to be a good girl..." A muffled sob again.

"There, there, dear. It's not your fault. It's the schools these days, I'll say it again. You saw Fiona, in the cell down the hall? We passed her coming in. Exact same thing as Lavender, best I can tell: just so obscene since her bite, unable to control herself. It's shameful! And the boys are even worse, rutting around like animals! If you ask my professional opinion, the werewolf bites only bring out what's already there. They just have no morals now, no sense of responsibility."

More sobbing.

"Come, dear, let's get those forms signed. She's better off here. She'll be pregnant in no time otherwise. Look at her – not even able to keep her clothes on! You don't want her running down the street like this, saying those kinds of things to strange men! My word, no. She'll be better off here. I guarantee it."

The voices faded from Lava Girl's head, replaced by the shrill cries from down the hall. She curled up even tighter on her bed at the Leaky Cauldron, her brain miles away and months in the past, as the nightly sounds of the Healer's shock therapy sessions on beautiful, wild Fiona crashed through her nightmares.

* * *

The next morning dawned calm and crisp, and Bill stretched out on his back in bed, yawning and running a hand over his face. He took a few deep breaths and paused, considering his body. It felt good, he decided. Better. Nearly back to normal. Two days on now since the full moon, and his sexual appetites were beginning to fade.

The two young men he'd fucked senseless the night before, after talking with Bowden and heading back out into the club, might have something to do with that, too. Groaning at the memory, he pushed himself out of bed and headed for the shower, the taste of yielding flesh and eager cock still thick in his mouth.

When Fleur arrived home at nine thirty, he was finishing his third cup of tea and cleaning the remains of his breakfast off the counter. She paused in the kitchen doorway, watching him, and when he saw her, his heart melted and his face dropped to a frown. He immediately started towards her, shaking his head. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I am _so_ sorry." She stood impassively but let him wrap his arms around her and burrow his face in her neck, breathing her in and letting her make the next move. After several long seconds, she finally raised her hands to his hair and around to the back of his neck, pulling him in for a light kiss.

"Okay," she said when she pulled back again, her eyes seeking his. "You are forgiven. But do not frighten me like that again." She paused, searching his face. "What happened? You have not behaved that way for a year at least, not since the very beginning. You have had so much control."

"I know." He shook his head again, cupping her face with both hands. "I'm sorry. Things have been... strange... this month. That's the best I can explain it." He stopped, unable to admit anything further to her, yet also unable to purge from his mind the image of Lavender pinning Bowden to the ground and riding his cock until she shattered. "Will you still come with me to talk to her?" he added, realising too late that those sentences probably shouldn't have been connected.

Fleur pressed her lips together and gave him a long look, but then she nodded, throwing her hair back over her shoulders and moving towards the Floo. "Yes," she agreed, "but only because I love you."

That would have to do for now, he decided as he followed her, not sure if he was ready to face whatever version of Lavender would greet them today.

* * *

Bill sat quietly on a chair in the corner of the room while Fleur did the talking. It would be better that way, he figured. Less temptation.

"So, my girl," Fleur began brightly, curling a leg underneath herself on the edge of the bed as she spoke to Lavender, who was huddled up against the headboard. "You have discovered the pleasures of the flesh that come with being a part-werewolf. Congratulations." She smiled, but Bill recognised the edge to her voice. She might be seeking to put Lavender at ease with friendliness and understanding, but there was no mistaking that Fleur was the one in charge here.

Lavender blinked at her, then flicked her eyes over to Bill.

"I only told her that you've had the same effects of the bite as the rest of us," he said, raising his hands in surrender.

"I am not looking to be in your private business," said Fleur soothingly, the placating smile still stiff on her face, "but perhaps we can help. It can be difficult to adjust."

"I'm doing all right," muttered Lavender, hugging her knees into her chest and peering out at them with wide brown eyes, her hair finally looking clean and tidy, tied back off her face.

"You will get yourself killed," said Fleur, dropping the smile. "It is as simple as that. You cannot walk into that club without an invitation. You cannot speak to alpha wolves in any way you wish, or to other strong men at that place. They are not used to strong women." She gave Lavender a pointed look, and Lavender opened her mouth as if to respond but closed it again quickly. "They wish for women there to bend over for them, yes?" Fleur glanced at Bill, who nodded, frowning in embarrassment.

They had talked about all of this before, he and Fleur, and they had a strong, open relationship as far as he could tell, but it still made him feel like an animal to hear her speak of wolf culture to another person like this. He took a deep breath and tried to relax, lest Lavender pick up on his anxiety. He didn't want her to feel like any more of a freak than she already did.

"The women who go there do not wish to fight," continued Fleur. "They wish to have wolves dominate them. And this is okay!" she added, as if sensing the aura of guilt in the room. "This is nice for some women! But you–" she pointed a finger at Lavender – "will be different. Everything is different now. Did you like to have sex before this?"

Lavender's eyes flew up to her. "I– what?"

"It is an easy question!" insisted Fleur. "Did you?"

"I– yes." Lavender's voice dropped to a whisper. Her cheeks flamed, and she ducked her head down again.

"You are very young," said Fleur, tilting her head to the side, as if needing to hear Lavender defend herself before Fleur would believe the answer.

"So?" snapped Lavender, her calm beginning to fade. "The first time, maybe I didn't like it too much. I was fifteen, and there was a broomstick digging into my back." She paused, mashing her lips together. "And he made sure everyone knew about it, about how easily I spread my legs for him, so everyone at school – even in my own House – called me the slag of Hogwarts. Well, fuck it."

Fleur listened patiently, not interrupting.

"So I shagged a few more of them," she continued with a shrug. "Not like it mattered – they would have told everyone I did it whether I did or not, so I figured I'd might as well. One of them even figured out how to bring me off." She snorted. "I got pretty good at doing that bit myself, too, and then, I don't know." She paused, frowning. "I started to like it."

Fleur moistened her lips, and Bill could almost see the thoughts racing through her head. No part-Veela girl got through her teenage years without figuring out an awful lot about what boys wanted, what they were willing to do to get it from her and the hurtful powers of a word like _slag_.

"I never shagged your brother, though, if that's what you're wondering," she added, glancing over at Bill.

"Uh, okay. Good to know."

"Listen," said Fleur. "You like it because you like it, or you like it because you think you are supposed to like it?"

"I barely remember," said Lavender, her face painted in honesty for the first time since Bill had met her. She sagged back against the headboard, closing her eyes. "I just can't remember anymore. All I remember is waking up in St Mungo's after the Battle, and the bed sheets were scratching over my nipples, and I came without even trying to."

Bill's body throbbed at the image, the words tumbling out of her mouth so casually, and images flashed through his mind of walking into that hospital room and shoving his hand under her sheets, feeling her wet and pulsing over his fingers. He exhaled slowly and closed his eyes. When he opened them, Fleur was watching him.

"You are curious about sex," Fleur said, turning back to Lavender, "and you are discovering the pleasures of your body for the first time. This is normal, with the bite or without it."

"You don't understand," insisted Lavender, sitting up again. "_With_ the bite is so fucking different. You have no idea. I mean, it's better today, but that's because the moon's gone, right?"

She glanced over at Bill, who ran a hand over his face and nodded. "It will be worse for the few days leading up to the full moon, and maybe a day or two after, yeah. It should be going down again by now, but it'll be back next month."

Lavender nodded, turning back to Fleur. "You're a Veela, right?"

Fleur shrugged, a light raise of one shoulder that indicated she did not want to let this conversation move over to her own sex life.

"You must be like this too, yeah? Doesn't your cunt just–" she grunted, an obscene noise filled with lust, fisting the bed cover in both hands – "_need_ it? You know what I mean?"

Fleur cleared her throat. "Veela desires are different," she said. "We can control them. It is just that to us, it does not seem reasonable to do so. It is reasonable, _sensible_ to our minds to indulge our bodies. For you–" she glanced between Bill and Lavender – "there is no sense to it. You cannot explain it or rationalise it. You simply have such strong desires to do it. No reason. Yes?"

She blinked innocently at Bill, and he couldn't help but grin at her because she already knew the answer. She knew exactly how it worked, and she'd got off on his supposedly unreasonable desires more times than he could count. "Yes," he replied, amused, as the smile crawled back over her face.

"So, like I was saying," continued Fleur, throwing her hair off her shoulders and turning back to Lavender, "you are strong now, in your body, and you must be strong in your mind. You must learn. If you are permitted into the club again, you must be clever about it, or those men will hurt you."

Lavender licked her lips, apparently considering the words, before she turned to Bill. "She still doesn't get it, does she?"

Bill blinked. "Yes, she does," he insisted. "She really does. You should listen to her."

"No, she doesn't," said Lavender, her voice rising and taking on the wolf's bitter edge, "because if she did, she'd understand that those blokes _can't_ hurt me, not anymore. I'm just as strong as them when the moon's up, and I want all the same things they do." She narrowed her eyes at Fleur. "You're no different from that alpha the other night. You don't think I can take it as hard as any of them can give it. Well, fuck you."

"Lavender..." Bill began.

Lavender scrambled off the bed and walked over to Bill, lifting one leg over him and straddling his lap before either he or Fleur could react. "Right now, Weasley," she purred, running her fingers down his chest. "Your wife ever watch you fuck another wolf? Come on. Show her you can't fucking hurt me."

She was insane. That was the only explanation. He had never seen any wolf behave as recklessly as this girl, so willing to break the rules and refuse all offers of help, and he'd never seen a bitten wizard switch so effortlessly between the calm rationality of their own minds and the aggressive pursuits of the wolf the way she did. But she also made his blood heat in ways he hadn't felt since Remus had done the same. He clenched his hands into fists and tried to keep Fleur's face in his mind, sitting on the bed and watching to see what he was going to do about the girl in his lap, but it was hard, it was so fucking hard, when Lavender's crotch was inches above his like this. He could tear his jeans open right now and thrust up inside her. He could throw her down on the floor and wank over her face. He could –

"Get the fuck up," he growled, pushing her off and standing, walking back to the far corner of the room and punching at the wall before turning around and pointing a finger at her. "Bowden's going to let you in," he said. "You can get the tattoo, be a full wolf and come to the club."

A smile spread over Lavender's face. "Brilliant," she breathed.

"But there are rules," added Fleur, still sitting on the bed and doing her best to look serene, despite Lavender's change in tone.

Lavender glanced between Fleur and Bill but said nothing.

"First, you can only go for the birds," Bill began, leaning into the wall and folding his arms over his chest. He fixed on a spot over Lavender's shoulder to avoid looking at her. "Bowden figures he can make a bit of money out of you, if word gets around that the female clients who aren't into dick can still get what they want out of the place." He paused. "Have you got a problem with that?"

Lavender wet her lips, tilting her head to the side. "No." She smiled.

"Good." Bill pushed down the image that rolled into his mind of Lavender curled over some limp young thing, pushing her fingers under a skirt and making the most obscene moans fall from the girl's lips. He took a deep breath. "All right. Second, if you _do_ want a bloke, or he wants you, you've got to clear it with Bowden first."

Lavender paused. "Meaning?"

"Meaning, I imagine, that whoever he is, Bowden'll want to fight him for you. Or, at least, he'll want to have you first, warm you up a bit before giving you up to another bloke." Bill frowned, rubbing at his jaw. "He can't– I mean, he can't force himself on you, not technically, and you'd better scream bloody murder for Jake or Simon if he does, or for me, if I'm there, but before you agree to any of this, you've got to know what you're getting into. He can be rather persuasive, and he thinks you owe him a favour. Might make him a real dick around you. More than usual, I mean. You'll have to be careful."

"I'll fuck Bowden," said Lavender, barely even waiting for Bill to finish. "I _liked_ him, remember? Strong. Lots of fight to him."

"Lavender, Christ, you can't keep assuming–"

"And neither can you!" She glared between Bill and Fleur. "Assuming I can't handle any of this! You sound like my fucking mother, like those psychotic fucking nurses at–"

She stopped abruptly, and Bill stared at her, his lips falling open. His mind raced forward, then back, then forward again. He'd gone to find her at St Mungo's. They'd said she was in another facility, a special ward for werewolves. His stomach clenched. "Where were you?" he whispered, his eyes wide as he cursed himself for not asking earlier and not following up on it after the battle. "You've been missing for four months. Where did they take you?"

"Doesn't fucking matter," she muttered, wrapping her arms around her body. "You want to rescue me, Weasley? Too fucking late for that. I got out by myself."

"_Where_?" he murmured again, his heart racing.

"Where all the pretty girls go when they get their faces torn off," she said bitterly, snarling at him. "Where else are they going to put us? They know about werewolves, Weasley. They might not know about the Ink Drop, but they know about the sex. They know you prowl around, that you're dangerous blokes. You think they'll let girls prowl like that, walking the streets with our tits hanging out and our faces ripped up? _It's shameful!_" she added, her voice the mocking lilt of a grandmother's. "Wizarding world finally found its 'family values', and it don't involve wolf girls with their legs open."

Bill opened and closed his mouth several times, stunned. "I– there's more? How many of you?" he asked at last.

Lavender's face closed again, and she pressed her lips together. "I told you, I got out. It doesn't matter. Now what's the third rule?"

"If you got out, then you are free," said Fleur at last, giving Lavender a long look, her brow creased with concern. "Do you understand? You are not a prostitute. You do not need to do this. Come, sit down again."

"Why are you so fucking patronising?" shouted Lavender, whirling on Fleur. "What are you, my mother now? I told you what I wanted. I told him, too." She nodded back at Bill. "I want the ink. I want to go to the club."

"Why are you shouting?" said Fleur quietly.

Lavender laughed. "Why don't you ask your husband about the wolf temper, yeah?" She sauntered over to Bill again and pressed in close, her lips skimming along his jaw line. He held himself perfectly still, swallowing. "Doesn't she know about the temper, Weasley?" she purred. "How we can shout and rage and fuck all night?"

He gripped her shoulders and pushed her back with steady pressure. "Stop it," he muttered. "I can teach you how to control that temper, but not if you're going to behave like this."

Fleur let her eyes linger on Lavender before glancing back at Bill. "It seems we should tell you the third rule." Her patience was clearly thinning.

Lavender sighed dramatically. "All right," she drawled. "What's the third rule?"

Fleur moved off the bed at last, gaining two inches at least over Lavender as she stood before the girl, calm and collected and making Lavender look like a petulant child. "Bowden does not like my husband," she began, "and so, any favour he is doing for Bill will have conditions. He is doing this favour for you, so that you can spend the full moon nights at the club and do what you wish, but in return, he says that you must stay away from my husband." She paused, her eyes fixed on Lavender. "I am inclined to agree with this rule."

Lavender slowly pressed her lips together. "Stay away, like, don't buy him a drink?"

"You know what it means," said Fleur, maintaining her outward calm. She glanced up at Bill, who was still slumped against the wall.

He hated to admit that this part of the deal was causing him more anxiety than any other, but it was. He had almost let himself believe that, despite his genuine interest in helping the girl, one day he might actually be able to indulge his body and pin her up against the wall of the Ink Drop, making her groan and ride him as hard as she could. Not anymore.

"My husband is an independent man," Fleur continued. "He may seek out whomever he wishes, mostly, although I am permitted to disagree with his choices. In this case, it is not up to him. If you wish to visit the club, then Bill is not available to you, nor you to him." She held Bill's eyes over Lavender's head, and he tried to smile reassuringly at her, but he feared he was only coming across as looking nauseous. "Lavender," she added at last, lowering her eyes to the girl. "You will be a strong woman. You may use the Ink Drop to become one. But do not trust any of the men there. They will not look out for you." Her voice dropped, and she leaned in close to Lavender. "He is no better than the rest of them when the moon rises," she whispered, nodding at Bill. "He will not look out for you, either."

Bill watched as the girl's face momentarily softened, and she leaned into Fleur's hand where soft fingers brushed Lavender's cheek. A flash of pain stabbed through him at her words, but he knew she was right. If they both wanted to protect Lavender and try to help her, she had to stay away from him. He knew he wouldn't be able to control himself if he got too close to her.

"I wish to help you, if I can," Fleur continued, her voice silky. "But you must remember something." The gentle fingers hardened, and Fleur grasped Lavender's chin between her thumb and forefinger. "If you insist on seeing me as a rival," she murmured, "then I will have no choice but to treat you as one." Her finger curled under Lavender's chin, and she tugged up until the girl met her eyes. "Yes?"

Lavender nodded, speechless, and stood wide-eyed as Fleur released her and moved towards the door. She pulled a substantial pouch out of her larger shoulder bag and dropped it on the table, where it clinked.

"Stay here until we can find somewhere more permanent for you. I shall make sure that Tom keeps you a secret." Fleur smoothed back her hair, her eyes glittering. "Be careful with that money," she added. "It is all you will get for now." She motioned for Bill to exit ahead of her, and he fought the urge to glance back over his shoulder and give Lavender a reassuring look. Instead, he marched forward until he heard Fleur click the door shut behind her, and then he turned, taking his wife's hand and squeezing it, hoping like fuck that she was going to be right about this one, that this outcome would be best for all of them.

* * *

_One week later, a Wednesday, 11:34 p.m._  
Lava Girl arrives at the Ink Drop, activates the entrance spell by pacing past it three times and, just as Bill had instructed her to do, approaches the big one – Simon – at the door. He looks her over, and she likes to think his balls are shrivelling into terrified little raisins at the very sight of her. After a long moment, he leads her inside and down another staircase.

The alpha is there – Bowden, Bill had said his name was – and another man who stands quietly to one side, twirling his wand and eyeing her.

"So. You agree to my terms?" says Bowden, not bothering to turn to look at her, and Lava Girl rolls her eyes at how easily he thinks he can intimidate her. He has no idea who he's dealing with.

"Yeah, I agree," she says with a shrug, unbuttoning her blouse and pushing it off her shoulders. "Birds for free, blokes with your blessing–" this she says with a mocking drawl – "and Weasley's off-limits. Got to say, I'm curious about that one, though. You saving him for yourself?"

Bowden turns at last, his arms folded over his chest and a nasty smile on his face. "You talk too much, little girl." His eyes fall down her bare chest. "I don't like Weasley, that's all you need to know, and I don't do him no favours." He leans in close, grizzled and sweating in the heated room. "You go anywhere near him, and I'll make sure both of your worst nightmares come true."

She pushes down the image that flashes into her mind of a dark cell and vile potions sliding down her throat without her permission, and she tries not to shudder. "Fine," she bites out, glancing over at the other one, who must be the ink man, and gesturing to her upper arm. "Do it, then."

"No turning back, little girl," says Bowden, grinning over his shoulder at Simon. "You take this mark, and you're one of us. Everyone on the outside'll know it, too. This is my mark, sweetheart. All the werewolves know it; all the wizards know it. The Ministry even fucking knows it." He pauses for what she can only imagine is dramatic effect. She tries not to roll her eyes. "They can't do nothing to you for having it, but they'll _know_. You'd better wear it proud, not do nothing to betray your people, or me – or I'll find you and rip it off your skin myself. You got that?"

She pauses, licking her lips and gazing at him from under hooded lids. "Yeah. I got that."

He nods to the ink man and approaches her. She expects him to run a rough hand over her breasts or at least lean in to bite at her neck or shoulder, but he holds himself back from her, refusing to touch her. The man murmurs a string of words, his wand pointed at Lavender's arm, and then he nods at Bowden, who raises his left thumb and presses it to the spot she imagines the ink will soon occupy. Her skin sears and reddens, and she grits her teeth against a sudden flash of pain.

In another second, he lifts his hand away and stalks out of the room without another word. Simon stays behind and stands in front of the door, as if someone could come barging through at any moment to interrupt the proceedings. She swallows a laugh at the thought. No one cares where she is now. No one will come looking for her, and if they do, she's a wolf now. She'll have the mark, and they won't be able to touch her.

It's what she has dreamed about for months.

"Hold still," the man mutters, touching his wand to her arm and murmuring the spells as he draws tiny shapes over her skin. It alternately heats and cools, prickling through her shoulder and chest before retreating to a dull ache under the tattoo itself, and in minutes, he's done.

She glances down to see the shining black ink pushing through her skin, still raw and wet-looking, but unmistakable as the mark of the wolves of the Ink Drop: an ever-watching eye with a single bulbous drop leaking from one corner, just like a drop of ink. Or a tear.

He throws a bundle at her, and she sees that it is her new uniform: black trousers and a tight black vest, just like the other wolves wear upstairs to differentiate them from the clients. Her face breaks into a grin, and she feels light in ways she hasn't in months. No longer will she have to sit and suffer while others cause her pain. The power to hurt is hers now.

She is finally, fully, a wolf.

* * *

For the next few weeks, Bill threw himself into his work. He stayed late at Gringott's most week nights, and at weekends, he headed over to the Burrow or to George's shop to sit around, drumming his fingers on the kitchen table as his mother told him tales from her bridge parties, or nodding in feigned understanding as George explained his latest inventions. At night, he crawled into bed with his wife and let his hands smooth over her soft skin, mindful of keeping his touch light and his words romantic.

They had always had a healthy sex life, but they made love even more than usual between the moons that month. He could sense Fleur covertly using Veela magic on him, which annoyed him. He generally didn't require it: she was a beautiful woman by any standards, and he loved and desired her more than anyone else. But with an added splash of her magic, he could look into her eyes and see nothing but the two of them, her legs wrapped around him and his mouth gasping against her neck as he thrust, and he was horrified that she thought she needed to do it, that she thought she was actually in danger of losing him. To prove that she wasn't, he did everything he could to make her happy that month.

But the Ink Drop still beckoned, and with it, the newest wolf on the block.

At the end of the third week, with the full moon approaching once more, he began to appear at the club again. He had avoided Lavender since their meeting at the Leaky Cauldron, trusting Fleur to send her money when she needed it and Simon to keep an eye on her at the club. She needed time to adjust, he figured, before he could reasonably help her out with issues like controlling her temper or finding a permanent job. For now, when the pull of their bodies was still too new, too raw and promising, he didn't trust himself not to break, not to put them both in danger by hauling her into a back room and shagging her senseless. He knew he had to stay away from her.

"How's she doing?" he said to Simon as he approached the door, not even bothering with a proper greeting and realising only too late that he'd been thinking of nothing else for three weeks, desperate for word that she was okay.

Simon just laughed, shaking his head. "Oh, she's doing just fine, mate." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder into the club. "Go see for yourself."

He had barely cleared the entrance, his eyes still adjusting to the dark of the place, when he instantly located her up against a nearby wall, trousers kicked aside and her legs spread wide. At her feet, a blonde girl had her face pressed between Lavender's legs, knotting fingers pushing her in harder.

As if sensing his presence, she slowly turned her head and saw him, holding his gaze and letting a satisfied smirk spread over her face. She bit at her lower lip and threw her head back, clearly putting on a show for him. His dick pulsed in his trousers as he watched, the girl increasing her pace and Lavender's fingers curling in the long strands of blonde hair.

"_Fuck, yes_." He couldn't hear her, but he could see her mouth forming around the words, over and over again, until at last she clenched her hand tight in the girl's hair and stilled her tilting hips, closing her eyes and letting her lips fall open. Bill swallowed, horrified at his inability to move, as she came back to her senses. Barely giving her time to wipe her mouth or ask for anything in return, Lavender hauled the girl up by one arm and shoved her away. She reached between her legs briefly, her eyes fluttering closed again, before pulling her trousers back up and walking away, even as the girl stumbled back onto the dance floor.

She headed straight for Bill.

Saying nothing, she simply walked up to him, her eyes focused on his, and stood before him. Without warning, she raised her hand and moved it slowly in front of his face, sliding her fingers and thumb together as though measuring the worth of silk fabric, and the smell of her hit him like a brick to the face. The fluids on her fingers mixed with sweat and soap and the thrill of a new werewolf on the prowl, and she smelled like fucking candy, the remnants of her orgasm wafting off her hand like that. He inhaled deeply and nearly shattered, sagging back against the wall behind him as his chest constricted and his prick thickened.

"Fuck you," he whispered, closing his eyes and shaking his head from side to side. "_Fuck you_." But when he opened his eyes again, daring to confront her with this madness, she was already gone, moving through the crowd again and searching for a new target to pounce on.

* * *

"Here." The sheaf of parchment landed with a dull thud in front of Bill at the kitchen table, narrowly missing his tea. "This is all I could find."

He looked up to see Fleur blinking at him, her face a mix of irritation and sadness. He glanced at the top of the pile. "_St Garbinger's Ward for the Rehabilitation of Magical Creatures_?" he read off the top sheet, glancing up at her. "What's this?"

Fleur nodded towards the rest of the parchment. "You wanted to know where she was. I asked some questions."

His eyes narrowed. "Of who?"

She glared at him. "I have my sources. Do you want to read it or not?"

An unnamed rage welled up inside him, and he fought it back while recalling the names. Guillermo wasn't a Healer, he didn't think, but maybe it was Jean-Claude. Or Marianne. Christ, he couldn't even remember them all anymore. "Sources," he muttered. "Yeah, I want to read it."

She pulled out a chair and sat across from him at the table, sighing. "They could not tell me very much. It is a secret, I think. Nobody wishes to speak about magical creatures, or what happened to many of them during the war. Many people do not wish for them to exist at all, you know. So, nobody cares too much if they are in a special ward." She pulled the parchment towards her and started ruffling through. "There are part-giants there, and a few Veela, I think. There is a sick mermaid on one of the brochures." She located what she was looking for and pulled it out, showing a glossy page to Bill.

A pathetic-looking mermaid indeed sat propped up on a bed, her lower half in a tank of water while she coughed and looked miserable. He opened the brochure to see a second picture of her, evidently rehabilitated and about to jump back into a lake, waving happily at the camera. He looked up at Fleur. "St Garbinger's Happy Magical Creature Holiday Camp?"

She shrugged, ignoring his sarcasm. "They have quite a few werewolves, I think, but maybe it is not so bad. It is a place for them to go, at least, if they have no one. I think perhaps Lavender's parents do not want to have her at home now."

"Did you talk to them?"

Fleur shook her head. "No, but I can imagine. From things she said, also, it is clear to me." She paused, moistening her lips. "Do you remember my cousin, Colette?"

He tilted his head to the side, thinking. "The prime minister's mistress?"

"_No_," she muttered, pausing. "That was Justine." Her gaze hardened. "But Colette, her father thought the Veela blood was too far away, over on my mother's side of the family, and she would not be affected. But she was, and when he found out, he banished her from the house." Casting her eyes down at the table, she pressed her lips together. "I heard him call her the most terrible names. He told all of the girls, even me, that if we came near his house, we would get what we deserve." She paused, her voice dropping. "He would get all his hunting friends together and send them to us, that we would deserve it for being such sluts."

Bill sighed, rubbing his eyes and then reaching for her hand across the table. "I'm sorry."

She lifted her chin and took a deep breath. "It does not matter about him anymore. He is a terrible man, but he is far away now, and we made sure he cannot hurt Colette. But Lavender–" she jabbed a finger down at the parchment – "her father may be the same. They must know of the effects, that she is a wolf. She could be better at this place than at home." She rose from the chair and squeezed his shoulder before leaving the room.

"Thanks," he called after her, getting up to make himself a cup of tea and then sitting in the kitchen for hours, reading through the materials Fleur had gathered on this mysterious place. His eyes widened with each page, and although the language was couched in euphemisms and painted over with images of happy, functional creatures like the mermaid in the brochure, his stomach clenched as the code words floated through his head.

Rehabilitation. Experimental treatment. One hundred per cent success rate. Reeducation. Bold and innovative research program. Value to society.

His fist closed over the nearest piece of parchment, balling it up into shreds, and he slammed it down over the table. Fucking, bleeding hell. Those brochures couldn't have made it very far out of the print shop. He'd certainly never seen one before, nor ever heard his family, friends or fellow werewolves ever mention this place – not even Remus. It didn't even have an address. From the sounds of it, there were part-werewolves locked up like animals in a basement somewhere in the suburbs of London, and Lavender had been one of them.

More importantly, without any idea where to begin, it looked like there was nothing he could do about it.

* * *

It was two days until the full moon, and he couldn't get her out of his fucking _head_.

The Ink Drop was a nightmare he couldn't wake up from. He had no willpower to stay away from it entirely, not when he feared hurting Fleur if he stayed home, but he also could hardly bear to walk through the door anymore, knowing his resistance to Lavender was crumbling by the minute.

"Weasley," called Simon as Bill entered the club that night, grasping his arm. "What's the rush, mate?" He grinned, licking his lips. "Don't forget you owe me one."

Bill paused, letting his eyes fall down Simon's thick body, muscled and grizzled with spiky, greying hair. It was tempting, that was for sure.

As if to make it worse, Simon reached into his pocket and drew out a miniaturised whip, laying it flat over his palm and holding it down for Bill to peer at. "Got my tools, Weasley, whenever you're ready." He moved a hand around to Bill's back, digging in a fingernail and sliding it down. Bill arched back, his chest puffing out and his neck bared at the contact, but his eyes wouldn't leave the tiny whip. With a barely breathed word, it could be full-size in no time, ready to rain down over his bare back and make him cry out in pain and desire. He shuddered, grabbing Simon around the back of the neck and drawing him in close to bite at his ear.

"Soon," he murmured, his breath hot on Simon's skin, and the other man groaned, closing his fist over the small whip. "But not tonight."

"Fuck," muttered Simon as Bill continued into the club, his breath shaky and his body aching. He would pay his debt to Simon, but only on his own terms. Otherwise, he'd end up in Simon's – and by association, Bowden's – back pocket before he could say, _Whip me_.

He entered the main room, and immediately, before he even knew he was doing it, his eyes were drawn to Lavender.

She was close, not very far inside the door, but this time, she was whispering furiously to Bowden, who stood with his arms crossed, looking stoically out at the crowd, his ear bent slightly down in the only indication that he was even listening to her. After a long moment, he glanced down at her and nodded, his lip curling as he murmured something to her in reply. She glared at him, but a slow smile spread over her face as she rolled her eyes, as though Bowden were nothing but a slightly tiresome child she had to put up with.

Without another word, she slipped to the floor and unbuttoned his trousers, pulling his large cock out and wasting no time in wrapping her lips around it. Bill blinked, his mouth dropping open a little bit. Anger and jealousy welled up in his chest, but he worked hard to temper it. He'd seen her consent with his own eyes, after all, and Bowden wasn't even touching her, wasn't even pushing her head in further or kicking at her while she sucked. Bill was still rational enough to realise that if he intervened, he'd only have a fight on his hands that he wasn't likely to win – not least because he couldn't even be sure Lavender herself would take his side.

"Oh! Hi. Hey. Are you– _yeah_. You are. God. Do you remember me? I was here, uh, awhile back?"

Bill glanced down to see a young man in a tight white vest and jeans standing before him, his eyes practically bulging in eagerness. His gaze dropped lower, and he snorted to see that the eyes weren't the only thing bulging.

"Just, because, you were _amazing_, man. Best fuck of my life, honest to God. Uh. You busy? Like, now? Because maybe we could–"

_Yeah, I'm busy. Fuck off_, Bill wanted to say, but he took a deep breath, his eyes drifting back to Lavender even as he addressed the kid. "Dark creature fantasies, right?" he muttered, starting to remember. "Kidnapped by a big bad werewolf and raped out in the forest?"

The boy's eyes fluttered closed and his cheeks pinkened. He fell against Bill's chest, grabbing onto the black vest as though for dear life. "God, yes. Please?"

"Yeah," he muttered. "All right." He glanced over at Lavender again just in time to see her throat working, swallowing Bowden's come as his ugly face contorted above her, and in another second, she was on her feet and wiping her mouth, slapping him on the arm as though to congratulate him for a job well done. With that, she turned to a man nearby, a nervous-looking kid who couldn't be more than eighteen himself, and grabbed his hand. He was just as wide-eyed as the kid in front of Bill, and Bill figured much of that was due to the fact that he had got to watch Lavender give the alpha wolf of the place a blow job before he'd give her permission to fuck that kid. Jesus Christ.

She seemed to take it all in stride, though, pulling her bloke to the back corridor. Bill grabbed his own kid's arm and followed, not even sure what he was after. "Come on," he said roughly, shaking his head as the kid stumbled over his feet in his haste to follow. Lavender had wasted no time, he soon realised; by the time Bill had reached the back of the club, she was already pressed against the wall, her trousers off and her vest pushed up, the kid's skinny arse clenching as he thrust inside her.

"Harder," she purred, her eyes flying up to meet Bill's, and he knew he shouldn't, knew this was the worst idea ever, but he couldn't help it; he shoved the boy into the wall only two paces down from her, ripping his jeans down and pulling his own dick out of his trousers. Lavender watched his every move, her boy's face buried in her neck. He was too far gone at any rate to care much about what she was doing or where she was looking, and she kept up a tirade of filth in his ear even while her eyes were stuck to Bill.

"I told you last time," muttered Bill, "that if you go out at night by yourself like that, the wolves are going to find you." He spoke into the boy's ear, but he knew it was loud enough for Lavender to hear. God, what was he doing?

"Sorry," the boy gasped. "God, yes. I mean, I'm sorry. I won't– do it again. Just, don't hurt me."

"Too late for that." Bill thrust inside with minimal preparation, his fingers digging into the kid's hips and hauling him onto Bill's cock while his eyes were glued to the dick moving in and out of Lavender. She spread her legs wider, one on the ground while the other hooked around the boy's waist, giving Bill a perfect view of the proceedings. God and fuck. She was so wet that he could see the moisture glistening on the boy's prick when it pulled out.

"Harder, you fucking fairy," she spat, raking her fingernails down his back. "I'm not your precious girlfriend. Wolf girls need some fucking power behind that dick, yeah?"

Bill grinned at her words, feeling terribly sorry for the kid while also fighting down his own surge of jealousy. _He_ could fuck her hard enough to bruise, hard enough to please her. _He_ could satisfy her like no one else could; he was sure of it.

His own boy moaning underneath him, Bill continued muttering filth to him as well, his eyes locked on Lavender and hers on him, and he imagined he could feel it, feel her, pulsing around his dick and groaning in his ear and scraping her nails down his back, and when she finally threw her head back against the wall and came, pushing the boy off and sliding her fingers through his pooling semen to ride out her orgasm, Bill bit down on the boy's shoulder and _growled_, his dick thick and hot and spurting inside.

For a long moment afterwards, he and Lavender stood there, panting and staring at each other, until Bill couldn't stand it anymore. He pulled out of the kid, ignoring his proclamations of undying gratitude, and ran a hand over his face. Refastening his trousers as he moved, he strode away from her without a backward glance, his heart still racing as he headed out into the night.

* * *

_Tuesday, 9:02 p.m._  
Lava Girl drinks a glass of water in her room at the Leaky Cauldron, watching the full moon creep higher in the sky. She can't bear it any longer. She thought that the wolves would sate her, that being near them or working out her desires on their communal prey would solve all her problems, but it hasn't. She needs more. Ever since she first saw him, she has known who she needed. He needs her, too; she can see it in every line on his face, every tension in his body.

They are wolves, and wolves don't need rules. That much is clear to her. She recalls the tiny object she saw in Simon's hand the night before and the shudder that rippled through Weasley's body as he stared at it.

Patting her back pocket and setting the water glass down, she locks her door and heads for the Ink Drop.

* * *

He knew he should just leave her alone, stop checking up on her and let her get into whatever trouble she was likely to get into. He had done what he could to help her out: she was there, after all, wasn't she? She had the uniform and the ink, and Bowden had allowed her to prowl the club with the other wolves, looking for willing submissives to violate. The problem was, he couldn't stop thinking about the ways she might be violating them, and what it did to his own libido to watch her.

Fuck.

The night of the full moon, he saw her pressed up against a smaller girl with dark hair, fashionably cut short with curling wisps around her ears and neck. She had a small mouth and wide eyes, and her lips parted at whatever Lavender was murmuring to her. Wetting them and nodding, she let Lavender lead her off the dance floor to the back corridors, and Bill had to close his eyes briefly and remind himself _not_ to follow them, not to look. He ordered another beer and slumped against the bar, resuming his own search for a willing body.

Seven minutes later, images of Lavender and the girl still crashing through his head, he gave up, slamming his empty bottle on the bar and making his way towards the back of the club. He rounded the corner to the sounds of lashes falling in a steady rhythm, each one followed by a high-pitched gasp or short scream, and he nearly stopped in his tracks. Oh God, she _wasn't_. No way.

Steeling himself and pushing his hair off his face, he moved through the throng of gyrating bodies fucking against various walls, breathy moans seeping down his body with each step. Finally, down at the end of one corridor, he saw them: down on all fours, the girl was moaning and rocking back and forth as Lavender crashed a medium-length leather palm flogger over her bare back. Its multiple strips struck her shoulder blades before Lavender dragged them down, sweat and a trickle of blood tickling over the girl's skin, from the looks of it, and threatening to send her over the edge before Lavender had even touched her anywhere else, or had even taken any of her own clothes off.

Bill took a shuddering breath. Of all the fucking toys for that girl to favour, it had to be a flogger. No one had touched him with one of those since Remus had died, and Bill could barely admit to himself how much he missed it. He didn't trust himself to use that sort of instrument on the submissives here, not without really hurting them. If he wanted a rough ride like that, he knew, he'd have to charm his own toys in the comfort of his own fucking basement, because he couldn't get it at the Ink Drop anymore. The inexperienced little rag dolls he fucked would never do this to him, and it wasn't too likely that another wolf would let him do it.

He should turn around right that second and head back out to see Simon. He should haul him down the basement and enlarge that whip he was carrying. He should submit right that second, that night, paying his debt and getting exactly what he wanted in the process.

But doing all of that would involve tearing his eyes away from Lavender, and no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't do it.

The girl cried out again as Lavender struck her, and Bill had to bite back a low groan. God. It wasn't fucking fair. He'd kill his own mother to feel that leather against his back right then, or – better yet – to use it again himself, as hard as he used to use it on Remus. He'd never found anyone else who could take a blow like Remus the night before the full moon, his wrists chained up above his head on the wall and his scarred back stretched out for Bill's abuse. It sated all the wolf's bloodlust, for both of them, and fucking him wide open afterwards and mashing his chest into the blood seeping from Remus's back always brought him the most powerful orgasms he'd ever had.

"Oh. _Oh!"_ the girl cried out, and Bill shook himself out of his memories to find Lavender had dropped to her knees, her hand thrusting under the girl's skirt and between her legs. Her back arched and she sank down to her elbows as Lavender shoved inside her, and Bill's dick throbbed at the sight. He tried to figure out how many fingers Lavender was using beyond the shadow of the skirt, until she twisted her arm a hundred and eighty degrees, the girl letting out a low, slow moan, and he realised that it wasn't just fingers: she had her whole fucking hand up there, rotating and fucking and making this girl spread her legs wider and shove back against her, even as the welts rose on her back.

At that moment, Lavender turned her head and saw Bill, a slow smile curling over her lips. Her tongue darted out to wet them, and she began to talk. "Yeah, you like that, you little slut? I told you I'd make you come over my hand, didn't I? I told you I'd have you dripping for me, soaking wet and ready to eat up my whole fucking hand like this, fucking yourself on a werewolf fist until you come your pretty little face off." Dropping her other hand from the girl's shoulder around her waist to the front of her skirt, she started rubbing her hard, her other hand still twisting inside.

The girl cried out again, her head dangling between her shoulders and her body visibly trembling.

Bill had to look away as the girl came, moaning loudly and shuddering under Lavender's body. It was too much, too fucking intense, and he couldn't watch another second without striding over to fuck the pair of them himself. _Goddamn_ her, that miserable little whore. Who did she think she was, baiting him like that? She knew the fucking rules. She knew his fucking weaknesses, too. Suddenly a blinding _anger_ trampled through his arousal, a rage at her that he could no longer control. She knew the rules. _She knew them_, and she was doing this anyway, putting on a show for him and trying to drive him mad.

The fucking little whore was going to get exactly what she wanted, then.

He pushed the others out of the way and strode over to her as she pulled her hand out of the girl, wiping it on the short little skirt with a light moan. The girl looked up at her with glazed eyes, and Lavender grinned as she glanced up at Bill.

"You want a go with her, Weasley? She's wet as fuck."

The girl's eyes widened as she seemed to calculate Bill's mood, and in terror, she closed her legs and scrambled away. It was a tremendously arousing gesture, although she surely didn't intend it to be, and another night, he would have delighted in grabbing her and pulling her back again, throwing her legs open and sinking deep inside her.

"Get up," he muttered to Lavender, swiping the flogger from beside her on the floor.

Her eyes flashing, she rose slowly, one foot at a time, and stood to face him.

"Come with me." He closed his fist around her small wrist and dragged her after him, striding quickly back to the edge of the dance floor and hurling her up against the back wall. "Take your fucking shirt off," he said, his voice still low but full of barely-suppressed rage.

She turned to look at him, her gaze dropping down his body and then back up, pausing only at the whip in his hand. When her eyes met his, she was no longer as amused and confident as she'd been two minutes earlier, but nor was she afraid. With a slow, calculated movement, she crossed her arms and grabbed hold of the edge of her tight black vest with each hand, pulling it over her head and letting her full breasts bounce free. Licking her lips again and still moving much slower than he would have wished, she lifted her hair back in both hands and pulled it to one side, over her front, before turning to face the wall and planting her palms flat against it, her head down. "Do it, then," she murmured, and the sight of her pale, smooth back only increased his desire to make her bleed, marked and wounded and his, finally _his_.

His throat too choked to speak, he grounded his feet on the floor and raised the flogger in his hand, feeling an exploding release of tension in his body when it struck her. She tensed, her fingers curling against the wall, but she neither spoke nor cried out, and he let the leather tendrils slide down her back, soothingly, before he raised it again. It crashed down once more, and he decided to start slow, caressing her with the heated leather on each down stroke before whipping it up again and letting the burn sear into her shoulder blades.

"God," she moaned after the sixth strike, her legs settling further apart and sweat breaking out along the ridges of reddened skin on her back.

"Shut up," he snapped, hurtling another blow at her. "You're not supposed to like this."

"Then you must be fucking doing it wrong," she muttered over her shoulder, her mood suddenly shifting from deep, slow pleasure to the wolf's desire and rage. Bill paused long enough to realise that a crowd was gathering around them, and he barely had enough of his own mind left to see that they would both be out on the street after this. With one look at her bruised, bleeding skin, though, he couldn't even care about that.

"You're the one doing it wrong, you fucking slut." He crashed another blow down, and she pushed her hips back further, stretching out her back. "Everything's wrong, ever since you got here. You wanted to bleed? Then go ahead and fucking bleed. See if I fucking care." She cried out at the next blow, her hair in her face and a sob rising up from her throat.

"You do care," she managed, spitting hair out of her mouth as she turned her head again, her body coiled tight. "You'd never have let me back here if you didn't fucking care, because you know what you want from me." She dropped her eyes down to the crotch of his trousers and narrowed them. "When you're done with your little punishment fantasy, you can get your dick out and fuck me with it, Weasley, and stop pretending you don't fucking want to."

"Shut the fuck up," he growled, bringing the whip down hard over her bloody back one more time, and she gasped, squeezing her eyes shut.

"I'm your only chance to let the wolf out to play," she taunted, her lips bitten red and her eyes hooded when she turned her face to him again. "You don't want any of these other cocks, do you? Not anymore. So you can wank to your sweet little memories of Professor Lupin, or you can get your fucking dick out and _tear me up_." Her chest heaved as her eyes met his in challenge, and a second later, she'd unzipped her trousers and kicked them off one leg, leaning into the wall again with her body on full display for him – and for the entire club.

"Fuck you," he whispered, dropping the flogger and wiping the back of his hand over his mouth as he fell on top of her. "_Fuck you._" He tore his vest off and pressed his chest to her back, groaning at the contact of fresh blood on his skin, feeling it seep over him and feed every desire in the wolf.

She struggled against him, knowing it was what they both needed, and when an elbow landed in his ribcage, he gave a shout before closing his forearm over the back of her neck and holding her down.

"You want to fight, little girl?" he spat, his lips hot over her ear, and she laughed, still struggling against him.

"You know you want me to," she whispered, and all the blood left in him fell straight to his dick.

"God," he choked out, squeezing her upper arm in his fist, and they paused together for a heartbeat, chests heaving. "I do. Fuck, I do. Stop me. I just– I don't–"

"_Do it_," she ordered, her face turned towards him over her shoulder, and all of a sudden, he saw every bit of the frothing, animalistic desire he felt mirrored in her eyes. "God. _Please_."

With a low groan, he dropped his head to her shoulder and bit down, his hands clawing down her sides and over her breasts, and then he quickly tore his trousers open and shoved them down his hips, the fabric pushing up against her bare thighs as he lifted his dick out and immediately pushed it between her spread legs. "You wanted to fuck like a werewolf?" he breathed, his cock poised just outside her entrance, and she moaned, punching at the wall in front of her and pushing back.

"Fuck you," she spat. "God, you fucking tease. I _told_ you to tear me up. I _told_ you to–"

He pushed inside her in one motion, his dick engorged beyond its usual size by the moon and his anger. He felt her initial resistance as she took him in, tight and hot and wet as fuck, and he didn't slow down, making sure he was lodged all the way in before pausing a moment to breathe. She choked out a moan, and he began to thrust hard, pulling out of her and shoving back in as brutally as he could, not giving her any time to set her own pace or adjust to his.

Her hand flew out to grab his, fingernails breaking through his skin as she pulled it over her breast and then down her stomach, pushing his fingers against her skin until they scratched and bruised, and then lodging it between her legs at the front.

"Harder," she panted. "Jesus fuck, Weasley, I thought I told you to–"

He clapped his other hand over her mouth, gripping her jaw in his fist as his hips snapped forward and his cock drowned in her wet, clenching heat. He bent her over, rubbing his other hand in rough, clipped motions over her clit as he mashed her cheek into the wall. She bit at his hand over her mouth, and the fighting urge surged in his blood, tightening his grip on her. She moaned into his hand, her breath hot on his fingers and her cunt beginning to pulse in thick waves over his dick, and she cried out harder, her fingernails lodged in the hand he had pressed to her clit, and then she stilled, gasping. "God, fuck, oh my _God_," she panted, as he dropped his hands to her hips and fucked her viciously.

She didn't go limp like the others did at that moment, though. She was still tense and hard and coiled like a wolf should be, muttering her filth at him and letting her bloodied back rub all over his chest, and his entire body caught fire as she clenched around his dick, wet and hot and _clenching_ like she was still fighting him, and all the wolf's desires spiralled out of control. He came with a shout, grabbing her and holding her tight as he emptied himself inside her, pulse after pulse of hot come spurting up her cunt and finally sating the wolf. His body shook and his fingertips prickled with released tension, and he wrapped his arms around her, his dick still convulsing inside her in the long, endless orgasm of the wolf, and he could barely breathe, barely think, barely do anything but let his body take complete control of both of them, sucking them under and making them slaves to the wolf's desires.

When Bill finally swam back to consciousness, he was draped over Lavender's sweat-soaked back, panting wildly and with all the eyes in the club trained on the pair of them. He saw Bowden and his men at the centre of the pack, arms folded and faces hard as brick staring straight at them. As Bill's rational mind seeped back in, he saw Bowden stalking off through the crowd and exhaled a long, slow breath of pinching regret.

* * *

_Wednesday, 12:44 a.m._  
Lava Girl feels him lift himself off her, his dick pulling free of her flooded cunt and his breath easing away from her neck, and she spasms once more at the memory of the encounter. Finally fucked right, just the way she's been dreaming of, just the way she needs, she leans forward into the wall and closes her eyes, bliss overtaking her.

* * *

"Come on."

They were fucked, oh yes, they were so unbelievably _fucked_ anyway at that moment, that Bill allowed the wolf to push its way into his mind and body once more, throwing all rational judgement to the wind and grabbing Lavender's arm. He still sparked red hot at the very feel of her skin, and he couldn't get past the fact that no one – _no one_ – had sated the wolf's desires like this since Remus. He didn't know what it was about this girl, but he needed her.

Again. _Now_.

She let go of him to pull her trousers and shirt back on and then ran after him as he strode through the club. He grabbed her arm again and shoved people aside in his haste, dragging her along behind him, and he couldn't think beyond the pounding in his head and through his blood. He Apparated them straight to Shell Cottage, her thin frame clinging to him and stumbling when they arrived, and this was madness, the worst idea he'd ever had – he and Fleur never, _ever_ brought other people back to their house, that was the one golden rule – but he could barely even remember his wife's face at that moment. All he could remember was that she was out for the night, and unlike him, she never crept home after midnight, bruised and sated and covered in come. She always stayed the full night with her consort of choice, and the wolf was purring at Bill to take full advantage of that.

He barged through the front door and threw Lavender down on the living room floor, falling over top of her and ripping at her clothes.

"Fuck," she moaned, kicking at him and at the fabric, both of them desperate to free it. "_Fuck_."

He was hard again and she was already soaking wet, soiled from the club and smeared with drying blood and semen, and she winced as her whipped back scraped along the carpet but didn't move to a different position, and the knowledge that she wanted that pain made him moan with need. He shoved inside her again without preamble, fucking her as hard as he could and grinding her body down into the carpet, and she pressed her feet into his neck and scraped her nails down his forearms and took every fucking thrust, pulling him in deeper and clenching around him. He came quickly, a blinding light behind his eyes, and then pulled his pulsing cock out, mashing it against her and fucking her again from the outside, rubbing it along her folds until she cried out and gripped his wrist hard enough to bruise, stilling him before directing his fingers inside her to absorb the convulsions.

They fucked the rest of the night, sweaty and hungry and exhausted but driven by a need Bill hadn't felt this strongly in months, and one he knew Lavender had likely never felt before. He licked her new tattoo and drank in the light in her eyes, before grinding up against her again and relishing the strong scent that rolled off her every time she came. He could do anything to her, he found – as rough as he wanted and as many times as he could, and the wolf howled in satisfaction.

As the early rays of sunlight sprayed through the dark curtains of the kitchen, he had her sprawled out over the kitchen table with four fingers and several knuckles already inside her. His mouth devoured her at the same time, his tongue flat and rough against her clit and his lips soaked in her, and she groaned loudly as he twisted his hand, making her arch her back and push back over his hand. She was so wet and filthy, covered in his come and still writhing against him, and he pushed his hand in further, wanting to hear her fall over the edge once more.

A loud knock at the door distracted him, but he ignored it, pushing his tongue against her and sating the wolf with her filthy moans.

A second knock, even louder this time, that slowly morphed into banging.

Nearly blinded by rage, Bill pulled his hand out and wiped it on his thigh, before Summoning a pair of jeans from his bedroom and stepping into them. Bloody buggering _fuck_. He wiped his clean hand over his mouth and stalked to the door, flinging it open. "_What_?" he bellowed.

The middle-aged witch standing on the door step went wide-eyed at his tone, her gaze flicking down his bare chest and over his loose hair before she cleared her throat and stood her ground. "I am sorry to bother you so early, Mr Weasley," she began, "but I'm looking for my daughter. I was told I could find her here." She met Bill's eyes in challenge, as if she could tell from Bill's attire _exactly_ what her daughter had been doing in that house, and startled, the wolf finally slinked away, leaving Bill gaping at the woman.

"You– what? Mrs Brown? But she said– I mean, I thought you were– what are you doing here?"

She nodded at the mention of her name, and then tilted her head as he continued to ramble. "We've been worried sick about her," she said. "She's not well, Mr Weasley. We had her in the hospital, where she would get the medication and care she needs, but... she gets confused sometimes. She must have wandered out when we weren't looking." She met Bill's eyes again, as if daring him to challenge her story.

He closed his eyes to avoid her. "_Fuck_," he muttered under his breath.

"Bill!" a honey-sweetened voice exclaimed behind him, and his mouth dropped open, a slippery shard of ice dripping down his spine from the inside. "That is no way to greet our guest! _Madame_ Brown, you will have to forgive my husband. He is like a wild animal in the mornings! Please, come in. I will wake Lavender."

Oh no. Oh, _fuck no_. He turned to see his wife approaching the door behind him, dressed in casual morning attire and with her long hair pulled back in a youthful ponytail. She was fresh-faced and smiling, but Bill dared not meet her eyes.

"Thank you," said Mrs Brown, stepping inside.

"I hope you will forgive us for not inviting you in," continued Fleur, her face painted with apology. "We are making renovations in the living room, and there is much mess. But here, let me bring Lavender to you." Without looking at Bill, she disappeared upstairs, and Bill turned to Mrs Brown, his brain moving at the speed of dripping molasses.

"I– yeah. Renovations." A picture of the living room flashed through his mind, with furniture toppled and blood and semen staining the carpet. He winced. "Sorry for, uh..." He glanced down at his bare chest and ran a hand through his hair. "Not a morning person."

She gave him a pinched smile, clutching her handbag and looking eagerly over to the staircase.

"Here we are!" said Fleur brightly, emerging a moment later dragging a shell-shocked Lavender behind her. She was wearing a robe Bill recognised as an older one of Fleur's, but her hair was still loose around her shoulders, tangled from the night before and streaked with various fluids. She looked rather like a monster, in fact, except for the robe. Bill only had to let the observation pass over his mind before he realised that he looked exactly the same way. He tried to catch Lavender's eye, but she was staring at the floor, all the fight in her apparently flattened by the wolf's sexual satiation – or from the trauma of being discovered naked on the kitchen table.

Bill squeezed his eyes shut.

"Oh, sweetheart!" her mother exclaimed, rushing forward to envelop her in a hug. "We've been so worried about you!"

"She is fine," insisted Fleur, still smiling, "but as you can see, she refused to bathe while she was here. Such a pity! Such a pretty girl!" She lowered her voice, even though both Bill and Lavender could clearly still hear her. "I think it is dangerous for her to wander around alone," she told Mrs Brown solemnly. "Do you have a safe place for her? She is a wolf now, you know. _Very_ dangerous." Fleur finally glanced over at Bill with that, her face stony.

"I knew it," said Mrs Brown, her lips pressed together. "She tried to wear me down, insisted she didn't need to be in the facility, but I knew better!" She fixed her eyes on Bill, frowning. "But you are one as well, are you not?"

Fleur nodded, answering for him even as Bill opened his mouth to tell the old bint where to stuff it. "He is older, though, and much more experienced with the condition." She squinted at Lavender, who still had said nothing. "I think maybe her bite was worse than my husband's, also. She seems much more affected by it." She paused, running her tongue over her bottom lip. "She is quite a danger to others, I think."

Mrs Brown swallowed and nodded, taking Lavender's arm. "Yes," she said firmly. "I quite agree. She is not the same girl anymore. The sooner she faces that, the better." Lavender shot an agonised look at Bill as her mother led her out the door, but her eyes were filled with tears and she seemed entirely unable to fight.

"No," Bill said at last, finding his voice as he watched them leave. "_No_. You can't take her back to that place. You can't–"

"Darling, don't be silly!" chirped Fleur, smiling at Mrs Brown on the steps while digging long fingernails into Bill's arm. "She will have wonderful treatment."

Nodding at her, Mrs Brown turned and hauled a stumbling Lavender down the step, where they Apparated away before Bill could process what had happened.

"Thank you! Good luck!" Fleur trilled, waving after them as she shut the door. As soon as they were gone, she turned to face Bill, her expression shifting from patient understanding to stone cold rage.

He said nothing, slumping back against the wall of the front foyer.

"In my house," said Fleur quietly, her voice laced with ice. "In my own _fucking_ house." The unfamiliar word rattled off her tongue, and Bill closed his eyes, wincing at it.

"I couldn't help it," he whispered. "I'm sorry, I just couldn't help it. How did you– when did you get home?" He reluctantly opened his eyes again.

"I received an owl early this morning from Geoffrey Bowden," she replied, shuddering at the name. "You promised me last year that I would not have to speak with that animal, _ever_. And here he is, sending me owls like we are such friends. And do you know what this owl said?"

Bill swore under his breath, picturing Bowden's face as Bill had lifted his eyes from Lavender's damp body at the club and seen him watching them. "He's angry with me. Just trying to get revenge. I'm sorry he brought you into it, but–"

"You are sorry he brought me into it," she said, her voice rising, "or you are sorry I have to be _into it_ because my husband is fucking teenage girls on my kitchen table?"

"I fuck a lot of teenage girls," Bill pointed out, lifting his chin, "and you've never minded before."

"Not that one," she shot back. "Not wolf girls. Not the only one I have ever asked you _not_ to fuck. And not in my house." Her cheeks had coloured and her eyes flashed with anger.

"And where were you when you got this owl, then?" Bill shouted, forgetting about his remorse and focusing on what he could only see as her hypocrisy. "Did you wait for Guillermo to get his dick out of your cunt before you opened it?"

She slapped him across the face at that, a burning imprint of fingers that stung like fire and sent him reeling backwards. "Don't you ever speak to me like that," she hissed.

"Do you even realise where you just sent that girl back to?" Bill pointed at the front door, trying another tack. "You _want _her chained up in a cell day and night? Is that what you want for werewolves? Would you send me to a place like that?"

"Right now?" She leaned in close to him, her face twisting. "In a heartbeat." She turned away from him, heading towards the stairs, and he was silent for a moment, reeling from that comment and not sure what to say. "And it is not like that. She is better off there."

"Fleur," he begged at last, softening his voice. "I'm sorry. You're right; I'm a dickhead. I shouldn't have brought her here. But have some pity on her. She needs wolves just as much as I do. She needs to be able to–"

Fleur whirled around on the stairs, glaring down at him. "She is not Remus," she bit out. "She is not your own personal wolf to play with."

"I– what?"

"Or is it you think she is you, and _you_ are Remus. Is this it? You must be the one with experience, to teach her things?" She laughed, cold and harsh. "You wish you could be even half the man he was."

That much was true, but it still hurt to hear it. "This has nothing to do with Remus," he said quietly, running a hand over his face. The telltale cold ache settled in his heart as he thought of the man.

"You are a fool," she said to him. "You cannot even see this for yourself, can you? You have denied yourself other wolves ever since he died, denying what you need, and now this girl comes along, and you decide she is this reincarnation, this new Remus for you. It is madness. She is just a teenage girl, Bill! You have spoken to her – she is mad! She is calm one minute and insane the next. There is this, this–" she clenched her fists on either side of her head, searching for the word – "this _break_, in her mind. She _must_ be in an institute."

"No. No. That's not what she–"

"My God, listen to yourself! Would you put up with a man like you doing such things to Ginny? To Gabrielle?"

Bill slammed his mouth shut, his stomach churning.

"She is better off in that place. They can help her."

"That's not it." He squeezed his eyes shut and fought the image of Remus that swam in and out of his mind. "No. The things they'll do to her there..." He grimaced. "She needs my help. She needs to learn how to–"

"What – how to get raped by married men twice her age?" Fleur shouted. "This is what she needs to learn? She is eighteen years old and frightened out of her fucking mind!" Fleur slammed her palm against the wall of the staircase, angrier than Bill had ever seen her before. "And you take advantage of that, convince her that all these older men should line up to have sex with her?" Her voice dropped and began to tremble, and she pointed a finger at him. "Get out of my house," she muttered. "You are nothing but a monster."

* * *

_Wednesday, 7:41 a.m._  
Lava Girl hits the floor of the cell with a dull thud, the silky robes Weasley's wife had wrestled her into pooling gracefully around her crumpled body. "Slut!" she hears Fiona screaming at her from down the hallway. "Bitch! Animal!"

Her eyes widen and she crawls over to the bars, folding her fingers around them. "Fi?" she whispers when the vitriol stops. "What's the matter with you?"

But she already knows. The treatment is working. She knew she should have taken Fiona with her when she escaped before, she knew it! Closing her eyes and resting her forehead against the cool steel of the bars, she struggles not to cry. Wolf girls don't fucking cry, dammit. Fucking, bloody hell.

"They told me where you've been," Fiona whispered back. "Flat on your back for any man who asks."

"Is that what they told you?" she mutters, opening her eyes and gazing out at the terminal grey of the hallway. They have won, then. The ward is quiet now, filled with docile wolves reciting all the rehabilitation slogans, renouncing sex and power and insisting they are happy just to lie there, drugged and complacent.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, she finds herself thinking, sliding down the floor as the tears spring from her eyes. Maybe she really should just do what her mother and the nurses say, and give up all hope for ever living her life the way she wants to, give up the first taste of real freedom she has felt in years.

* * *

Simon was shaking his head before Bill had even rounded the corner to the Ink Drop's hidden location.

Bill glanced around. "You my one-man welcoming party?"

"Don't even try it. The wards are set against you now. I'm just doing you a favour by coming out to tell you in person."

"He owled my wife, Simon." Bill gave him a pleading look. "That shit's not on."

But Simon wasn't in a sympathetic mood, it seemed. "You know what's not on, mate? Breaking his fucking rules." He pushed himself off the railing he'd been leaning against and sauntered forward. "It's not fucking hard. Jesus, you got your pick of arse or twat in there. What the fuck's so special about that bird? She got a cunt made of candy or something?"

"Might as well have," muttered Bill, running a hand over his face.

"Well, I hope it was fucking worth it, because you're out, mate." He jerked his thumb towards the street. "For good."

"Come on, Simon. Let me talk to him."

"No fucking way. If he sees your face in there, I'll be out on the street with you."

Bill was about to try another tack, when a small group of men rounded the corner towards them, talking and laughing in loud voices.

"The fuck?" one of them called good-naturedly to Simon. "We moving upstairs tonight? Gonna take over the alley, get some fresh air?" They laughed, jostling each other as one reached Simon and gave him a punch on the arm.

"Fuck off," said Simon with a grin, giving them two fingers. "Usual way in; Jake's down there. I got business up here for now."

The group moved a few metres away from them and each man paced three times across the same spot before disappearing down the emerging staircase.

"All right, Weasley?" the last one asked as he passed, and Bill looked over to see Nash trailing behind the group. He glanced between Bill and Simon, eyebrow raised.

"Not really," he replied, forcing a laugh. "Don't suppose you were here last night."

Nash shook his head. "Sick as a fucking dog. I don't even know what the fuck. Haven't felt like that at full moon since the month after I got bit, yeah? Christ. Like I got shat out by a fucking hippogriff." He exhaled sadly. "Why, what did I miss?"

Bill ran a hand over his face. "Long story," he muttered, "but I fucked up._ Really_ fucking cocked it all up." He nodded over at Simon, who was watching them with his arms folded over his chest. "Won't let me in."

"Simon," sang Nash, grinning at Simon and kicking a rock over towards him. "You can't kick Weasley out. He still owes me a threesome." He wet his lips and let his eyes drift back to Bill.

Bill laughed. "Christ. Yeah. That'll convince Bowden."

The grin faded. "You want me to talk to him?" said Nash, his tone turning serious. "This something we can fix?"

"God, I hope so." Bill rubbed at his jaw. "If he'll talk to you, then yeah, that'd help. Tell him Brown's in trouble. That new girl," he clarified, when Nash squinted at him. "_Real_ trouble."

Nash paused. "What kind of trouble?"

"She's caught," said Bill, his throat closing at the very thought of what had happened to her, and how he hadn't been able to prevent it. "Locked up. Some facility south of the city; I don't even know where."

"Not that fucking 'rehab' place," said Nash, mocking the word, and Bill's eyes widened.

"You fucking know about it?" he said in a rush. "You know where it is?"

"Yeah, I know where it is," Nash said darkly. "Thought they closed that clusterfuck down. Fucking hell." He pushed his tongue over his teeth, thinking. "She's one of ours, yeah? Got the ink?"

Bill nodded, and Nash shook his head.

"Fucking hell," he repeated, heading for the still-visible staircase. "I'll talk to him," he called to Bill, hurrying down towards the club, "but you'd better hope he thinks she's worth saving."

* * *

_Friday. Maybe. Who even fucking knows what time?  
_Lava Girl sits in the dark, her knees curled up to her chest and her dirty hair hanging over her face. Her body aches with the pain of holding back, holding everything back. It's not just about the sex; it's never just been about the sex. It's about the power she knows she could wield, the power she could draw on out in the world to choose her battles at last and not only fight them fairly but win them.

The sex is simply a conduit, she can see that so clearly now, just a way for her to get what she needs and to constantly drink in the power of a desire fulfilled.

Something occurs to her at that moment, and she sits up straighter. "Did you get jealous, Fi?" she murmurs, her voice easily carrying through the darkness to the neighbouring cell. "Did you wish it were you out there with the other wolves? I found them, you know. All the wolves like us. They don't think it's so bad to have a little fun at full moon. They don't try to stop you, try to drug you till you can't feel it anymore."

The hallway fills with silence, hovering between their two cells like heavy cloud.

"You're lying," whispers Fiona at last, and Lavender presses her nose and lips through the bars, desperate to get closer to her.

"I'm not," she insists, shaking her head. "You can still feel it, can't you? Don't you want to find those wolves with me, Fi? I'll take you to them this time. We'll go together."

Another long silence, before Fiona whispers, "Moira got pregnant when you were gone. Did you hear? Those fucking guards. Fucking bastards. They took it away from her, though. Took everything away."

Lava Girl sits quietly, hugging her knees and processing this information. "We'll take her, too, then," she says at last, firming the plan in her mind. "We'll take all of them."

* * *

"Customers, dear brother! Can't sleep all day if you're going to earn your room and board!"

The cackling voice floated up the stairs, and Bill rolled over, mashing his knuckles into his eyes and wondering for a brief moment why his legs were hanging off the bed. He squinted through the violating sunlight streaming in. Smallest bed he'd ever bloody seen.

The door banged open and George strolled in, carrying a tray. "Coffee, tea, biscuits, scones, jam," he recited, pointing at each item, "gravy, tomatoes, a cheeseburger–" at this he looked surprised – "pumpkin juice, fresh Atlantic salmon, and just for my big brother, a French éclair." He bowed low, balancing the breakfast tray on three fingers.

Bill shoved himself into a sitting position, eyeing the tray. "Not bad," he muttered. "New line?"

George grinned, standing upright again and twirling the tray into a rapid spin on one finger until it swirled away into a wisp of air, before finally disappearing altogether. "Not really. Too hard to market it. I mean, whether it's your wife or a one-night stand, it makes you a bit of a dickhead to present a vanishing tray of food, doesn't it?" He sighed sadly. "That one I have to keep to myself."

Bill smiled, rising from the bed and ruffling his brother's hair. "Same old Georgie. The éclair was a bit cruel, though, you've got to admit."

George had the sense to look slightly sheepish. He scratched at the back of his neck. "Yeah, all right. Sorry." He paused. "So, has she cooled off yet, or should I order a matching towel set for us?"

"Not yet," said Bill, yawning, "on both counts. She'll be all right. Just, you know." He waved his hand. "Women."

"I'm not even going to ask what you did, and consider that a personal favour, because I _know_ it has to be something spectacular." His eyes twinkled.

"It was," Bill assured him, closing his eyes as the memory of Fleur's face twisted in anger and disappointment swam in front of him. Just then, a burly, dark owl tapped on the window, and as Bill glanced over at it, he got the impression that if it could have crossed its wings over its chest and glared at him, it would have. Waving George off, he took the owl's note and unfolded it.

 

_She's pack. Nothing else matters._

We go in next full moon. Let them think no one's coming for her for a few weeks. Nash knows the place. We're putting together a plan.

Make no mistake, Weasley: this is for her, not you. When it's done, I still want your balls in my back pocket.  


It was signed only with the stamp of the Ink Drop, and Bill sagged back against the window, breathing a sigh of relief.

* * *

_Later. Morning, maybe.  
_Lava Girl is tired of waiting. She can barely feel Lavender at all anymore, the girl she used to be has weakened so much, withering inside her like a wounded animal. It doesn't matter. No one needs that girl anymore, snivelling and whimpering and sitting around just wondering what the world is going to do to make her happy today.

Lava Girl is tired of waiting to be strong again.

She has mastered the art of holding the potions in her mouth until the nurse leaves, feigning a deep gulp and earning pats on the head and an extra piece of bread to chew. But as soon as she is alone, she leaks the fluid into the folds of her filthy robes, covering her hands over the bubbling steam that contact with the fabric causes and watching with alert eyes for signs that they have discovered her deceit.

They haven't, though, and they never will. They still believe her last escape was an accident, after all, simply the result of her lost, confused wanderings and a careless guard. They don't believe her capable of doing it on purpose.

No one ever thinks her capable of doing anything on purpose.

In that respect, they are not much different than some of those bloody wolves.

* * *

The morning of the next full moon, Bill was minding the counter at George's shop while George was in the back, conducting God knew what sort of experiment. Bill's bones ached and his stomach was in knots, but he wasn't sure how much of that had to do with the moon and how much with the anticipation of their rescue mission that night.

He glanced up at the sound of the tinkling bell to see Fleur walk in, her head down and her face drawn. She stood just inside the door for a long moment, looking at him.

"Hi," he said softly, his heart clenching at the very sight of her. He hadn't even seen her in weeks, feeling too angry and ashamed of himself and genuinely not knowing what to do to fix this.

She smiled gently and moved further inside, but still stood away from the counter.

"I miss you," he added, and her smile deepened.

She nodded. "I miss you, too." She paused, her fingers clenched around her handbag. "Can you promise it yet?" she asked, her head tilted to the side. "Promise me you won't hurt that girl again, or anyone else like her?"

Bill swallowed, the old anger beginning to rise. He struggled to keep his voice even. "I've thought about what you said," he began carefully, "and I know what it looked like. But you saw what happens to me if I don't– if I–" He frowned. "If I don't go after wolves, then one of these times, I'm going to end up hurting you." His voice cracked on the last word, and he took a deep breath. "I know I fucked up. I know I shouldn't have brought her home. But I haven't felt that– _free_, that calm, in a long time."

She moistened her lips carefully before speaking. "It was for _my_ benefit, then," she said, an edge to her voice, and Bill shook his head.

"Don't do that. Don't make it sound like that. It's no different than before, with Remus. God, we've been through all of this before!" His voice rose, and he ran a hand through his hair, gripping the tie of his ponytail for a brief moment before letting go. "I know what you need, and you know what I need. We knew all of that, and we still got married, still promised each other we could do this." He paused. "I still _want_ to do this."

"This is not the same as Remus," she said quietly, her shoulders sagging. "It is not the same, because with Remus, you were in love with him."

Bill's eyes snapped up. "No," he began, shaking his head, "that's not–"

"Yes, it is," she said firmly, before her voice softened again. "It is okay. I always knew. Remus knew too, I think, but he did not make it plain to you – for my benefit, I think. And for poor Tonks." She pressed her lips together, shaking her head. "But it was not just the wolf, with him. You have to admit that."

Bill was silent.

"You have not grieved for him," she whispered, "not properly. You still expect to find him everywhere, in any person in that club. Any hard body will do, anyone who says the things to you that maybe he did. This girl, I think maybe she says these things to you, makes you angry, excited."

He closed his eyes.

"But she is _not_ Remus. She is not the same."

"It doesn't matter," he said after a long pause. "Even if you're right, and I don't even know anymore, it doesn't matter. I'm still a wolf, I don't have Remus and I need to let it out on _someone_ at full moon. That hasn't changed. And it can't be you. All I know is that I fucking _can't_ let it be you. Lavender, she can help me make sure it's not you."

Pressing her lips together and ducking her head down, Fleur turned back towards the door. "No," she said sadly over her shoulder. "She cannot."

* * *

The attack came at midnight. Armed with their wands and, almost more importantly, their brute strength and their fierce determination to rescue their pack mate locked in that grey, stone building, the wolves of the Ink Drop bound the guards, scaled the walls, and breached the hidden fortress before anyone inside could do anything about it.

Bill felt the energy of the full moon merge with the thrill of the hunt in his blood, desperate to see Lavender again and assure himself that she was alive, that he hadn't done her any permanent damage by allowing her mother to drag her back here like that. He tried to block the thought of Fleur's complicity in it from his mind. _No_. Dwelling on that would only make him angrier, and on a night like this, when the air was already thick with testosterone and aggression, he didn't need an excuse for more rage.

She had only done what she'd thought was best. He told himself that over and over again.

"Down this hall!" someone shouted. "Now! Now!"

Nurses' alarmed cries were silenced by quick spells, binding or stunning them, and Bill moved behind the advance guard, making sure no one was bleeding and no limbs were broken. He ran to catch up to Nash and the others at the werewolf wing, only to nearly slam into their backs as he rounded the corner.

The group of them had stopped abruptly just inside the gate, staring slack-jawed at the series of cell doors that stood swinging open, rusted iron creaking in the unnatural silence.

Bill pushed his way forward, running down the hall and checking in every cell, but they were all empty. In the final one at the end of the row, three words had been stuck to the concrete floor in strands of sticky long hair:

_FUCK YOU ALL_

He barked out a laugh, turning incredulous eyes back on the other wolves who had followed him down the hall.

"They're already gone," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "Already fucking gone."

* * *

_3:32 a.m., probably.  
_Lava Girl approaches Shell Cottage cautiously, tiptoeing through the grass of the far lane like a tiger on the prowl. He is at the Ink Drop, she figures – it's full moon and he'll have more than enough hormones to take care of, but she can't risk going there, not yet. Instead, she waits for him here, not even sure what she wants from him. Closure, she imagines. Maybe a fuck, maybe just a cup of tea.

She needs to see him, though. That's all she knows.

She sent Fiona and the others off to find food and a place to stay, at least somewhere to get them through the next few days. In the meantime, she sits down with her back scratching the bark of a tall tree in his yard, closing her eyes and taking too much pleasure from the feel of rough spikes over skin still sensitive from that flogger.

* * *

Exhilarated by the hunt and still reeling from the shock of finding Lavender and her cellmates already gone, Bill and the other wolves headed back to the Ink Drop, laughing and clapping each other on the back. The troupe of black-clad men strode loudly through the alley, sending loitering drunks and homeless wizards scattering, before arriving at the club and heading down the dark staircase to follow the pulsing music that had started up again at their return.

"No."

Bill turned his head away from Nash, who had been telling a rude joke with his hands, at the feel of a large palm pushing against his chest. He faced Bowden head on for the first time in a month, narrowing his eyes and steeling his jaw. "No, what?" he muttered.

"You still ain't coming in, is what."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Bill jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "After all that?"

"That wasn't about you."

"If she's pack, then I am, too," he bit out, pointing at the ink on his upper arm. "I've been here longer than most of these blokes, and I've never done anything to fuck with you." He knew he had to say it, but even as he did, the pride of the wolf began to bleed through, simmering with rage at having to bow to this wolf before him. His body had never recognised Bowden as its alpha, never instinctively deferred to him – not like it had with Remus, or, fuck, even with Lavender.

"You've done nothing but break my rules," replied Bowden, folding his arms over his chest. "I gave Lupin some room, because he was worth respecting – even when he threw you in there and the pair of you lost me all fucking kinds of Galleons, fucking each other instead of the fucking clients. But all right, hey, yeah, I didn't say nothing. Then you show up with that girl, and–"

"I didn't fucking show up with her! She–"

"–and proceed to make a fucking bitch of me in my own fucking club? You had one rule to follow, Weasley: _I_ control who touches that girl, not you, and you couldn't even fucking do that."

Brimming with anger, Bill stepped towards Bowden, his nostrils flaring. "Am I pack or not?" he said quietly, his voice laced with metal.

Bowden met his gaze evenly. "You're on probation," he replied, a nasty grin sliding over his face.

"And Brown, if she shows up?"

Bowden shrugged. "She'll have to learn to follow rules better, too, but fuck, what do I care? She's just a bird who wants wolf cock, and she brings in the clients." He barked out a laugh. "I don't fucking care what else she does."

Bill bit back a stream of vitriol that he knew, somewhere in the back of what remained of his rational mind, would only land him in St Mungo's or worse, dead in this filthy back alley. "Fuck you," he muttered instead, shaking his head.

"Get out of my face, Weasley," snarled Bowden. "Two months on your own, and then you can come back. See if you've learned to fucking behave by then." He turned on his heel and stalked back down the stairs.

A few of the others gave Bill a sympathetic punch to the shoulder as they passed, but he barely registered any of them. Blinded with anger and still thrumming with the adrenaline of the full moon and the rescue mission, he stormed up the alley, Apparated back to the gates of Shell Cottage and wiped a hand over his mouth, trying to bring his temper under control before he went inside. He had no home, and now he didn't even have the Ink Drop to go to. He was determined to fix at least one of those things tonight.

But the sight that greeted him as his eyes adjusted to the dark and his feet settled into the dirt of the lane post-Apparition sent his blood boiling over.

"You fucking slut," he spat before he could stop himself, kicking the gate off its hinges and striding down the lane towards the front door of his house, where his wife's hand was wrapped around a man's arm, her lips still wet with his kiss. "In my fucking house. Is this what you're fucking doing now, bringing this home with you? You fucking cunt. You fucking–"

"Hey, okay, it's all right, mate, my God, just, wait a second."

"Guillermo, no, do not try to speak with him! Just, go home now. Please."

Bill paused, appraising the man. "So, you're the famous Guillermo," he drawled, already almost tasting the sweetness of the man's blood over Bill's teeth. "I've been waiting to meet you," he added, before his voice turned ugly again. "Waiting for a reason to rip your fucking face off. You see that?" He pointed up to the sky, where the clouds were shifting to reveal the full moon. "You know what happens to blokes like me at full moon?"

Guillermo's eyes went wide, and he turned to Fleur. "Your husband is a _werewolf_?" he whispered fiercely. "You did not tell me this!"

Fleur shrugged helplessly at him before turning back to Bill and grasping his arm. "_Please_," she said quietly. "Get out of here. You do not live here anymore."

"And you replaced me in a heartbeat, I see. Does he live here now, then? Is he fucking you in my bed?" The rage coiled through his chest and down into his fingers, curling them into fists. "Do you fuck on my kitchen table, in my living room?"

"You are one to talk about kitchen tables," she replied, her voice icy, and Bill grabbed her wrist, throwing her to the ground.

"Shut the fuck up," he shouted, and he couldn't even see her anymore, couldn't even think. She had ceased to be his beautiful wife, the wolf had seen to that; she was nothing but an object of jealousy and rage now. There was no turning back.

"Oh, God," whispered Guillermo, bending to help Fleur to her feet, but Bill stopped him, grabbing a fistful of his cloak and throwing him up against the front door so hard it rattled.

"I always fucking hated you," Bill panted, pulling his right arm back and releasing it over the man's jaw, the wolf flaring inside him at the sound of the _crack_ as his head hit the door. "Always in my fucking face, sending my wife fucking roses and chocolates." His left hand pulled at his cloak until Guillermo, dazed, was facing him again, and then his right hand landed another punch, a sickening purple beginning to blossom over the man's jaw.

"No, please, I'm sorry," he stammered, breathing hard.

"Shut the fuck up."

"Bill! My God." Fleur grabbed him from behind, whirling him around to face her and struggling to hold his wrists down. "Do not hit me!" she shouted, her eyes piercing his. "Listen to me! You are my husband," she began, her face pleading. "I love you. I desire you above all others. This man–" she gestured her head to Guillermo – "he is nothing to me, do you understand? It is only you."

But for the first time, Bill felt the urges of the wolf slice through her recitation. Where those words usually calmed him when he became unreasonable, now they only made it worse. "Nothing to you but a wet dick," he spat, throwing her off again. "Nothing to you but–"

"Hey, Weasley! For fuck's sake, you are one sad fucking creature, you know that? Christ. Is this what you do for fun when I ain't around?" A shrill laugh cut through the night air, and the wolf's instincts whirled him around. "You want to fight? Get the fuck over here, then. That's no fucking fun, ripping up a pair of cunts like these two."

He strode away from the door and found Lavender strolling up the lane, dressed in her Ink Drop uniform and with her hands calmly placed in her trouser pockets. "What the fuck do you know about it?" he bit out, but the wolf jumped at the chance to see her again, to battle with her and inhale her scent, maybe even bite down over her blood. He shivered with desire at the thought.

"I know they ain't fucking worth it." She slid a hand around the back of his neck and dug her fingernails in, pulling him down towards her. "You want to fight? Let's go. You and me, dickhead. Right now." He vaguely registered her eyes flickering over his shoulder and her head gesturing quickly to one side, and he heard movement back at the door, but her nails scraped down his neck and he shuddered, suddenly no longer interested in whatever was going on behind him.

He grabbed her hips and pulled her towards him, immediately grinding into her. "Right now?" he breathed, and she shifted her hands, pushing them up under his Ink Drop vest and scraping down his back hard enough to cut flesh.

"Guess what I've got?" she whispered, wetting her lips, and he arched towards her as the sting of her nails plunged through his skin. Her eyes flicked over his shoulder again while one hand reached into her pocket, withdrawing a miniaturised version of the palm flogger they had used the month before. Pulling out her wand and whispering a word, she let it grow to its full size again, brushing it in front of Bill's face.

His cock thickened at the very sight of it, and he groaned low, maneouvering her back against a tree while pulling his vest off at the same time. "My little pain whoring wolf?" he murmured, shoving her against the rough bark and devouring her neck, but she laughed, easily pushing him off.

"Or mine," she said slyly, whirling him around. With another quick word and wave of her wand, his arms flew up above his head and his wrists were bound to the trunk, baring his back to her. She pressed the heel of her hand between his shoulder blades and leaned in to lick at the drops of blood already seeping from the damage her fingernails had done. Without warning, the flogger abruptly rained down over his back, the sound of the air shooting past its leather tendrils adding to the instant pain that stabbed through his flesh.

"_God_," he choked out, mashing his cheek against the bark and writhing back against her.

The flogger smashed down again, and Bill could feel the skin tear, opening for her and feeding her need for blood and pain just as much as his. "You feel that yet?" she whispered in his ear, the tendrils stroking gently across his back, and he arched back further, swallowing over a loud groan. "Maybe I'll do this till you come; maybe I won't. Maybe I'll keep doing it so long _after_ you come, that you'll never even think about pulling this mad fucking shit again. How about that, yeah?"

He gasped at the third strike, his back flaming. "What the fuck?" he panted, his dick aching.

Another loud crash against his skin, followed by another, and another, and with each one, with each new word out of her mouth that accompanied each stroke, her voice shifted in his mind, becoming deeper and even more disappointed with him.

"You know who to take it out on when it gets bad like this, and it's not your fucking wife," the voice muttered in his ear, and a surge of pain and desire so poignant swept through him that he would have fallen to the ground if not for the bonds around his wrists.

"Remus," he whispered, his mind whirring and the dark seeping in around the edges of his vision. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I can't– I just– I can't do this without you."

The voice hesitated for a moment, but it soon spoke again. "Yes, you can," it whispered, the whip subsiding as a warm hand slid into his trousers and grasped his cock. "Come for me," it soothed, light and comforting in his ear, but with all the pain he still needed. A fingernail scraped at his slit and the hand squeezed too tight, and Bill felt the waves of pleasure begin in his thighs. "Come for the girl. She'll take care of you now. Just let her. Come on, Bill. You can do it."

His body began to pulse, and the vision of Remus swam through his mind, all the pain and pleasure he used to bring out in Bill swirling in a mess of sensation over his skin, but just as it all began to crest, a firm circle of fingers closed in around the base of his cock and twisted. Hard. He gave a shout, clenching his fists in the bonds and whirling his head to the side. Opening his eyes, he saw Lavender glaring back at him, her eyes soft but her expression angry.

"Never again," she bit out. "You come to me when it gets like this – do you fucking understand me? You stay the fuck away from your wife and anyone else she's with." She paused, and Bill panted, closing his eyes again. Her fingers dug in harder around his dick. "I said, do you fucking understand me?"

He swallowed down the humiliation of finding those words so bloody arousing, knowing in the back of his mind that this was serious, this was his entire life, his marriage they were talking about, and yet, all he could hear was Lavender's ragged voice against his ear, battling with the wolf and challenging him in all the ways he needed. "Yes," he spat, pushing up against her hand. "Yes. Fuck. My wife's a fucking goddess; you've seen her. Whatever it takes to keep her."

With a smile, she released his dick and gave it a long stroke upwards, and his body convulsed in delayed pleasure, spiralling out of control and sparking pleasure and relief through every limb, every cell. She smeared her hand through it and then pulled it from his trousers, bringing it up to her mouth and making sure he was watching before licking off every drop.

He slumped against the tree, suddenly exhausted beyond his years.

* * *

When he opened his eyes again, he was sitting back against the tree, his wrists raw but released, with the two women talking in low voices a few paces away.

"Is your bloke all right?" said Lavender quietly, her hand on Fleur's arm.

Fleur nodded, wiping her face. "I took him away, but then, my God, I had to come back. I had to Stun him before he would let me, but..." She forced a sad laugh. "How could I not come back?"

Lavender's voice was dark. "I don't know. You sure you can stay here with him like this?" She paused. "Fiona's looking for a place for us. I mean, you aren't my favourite person, but if you need to stay with us, it's all right."

"No, no. My God. I– thank you. He is–" Fleur hesitated a moment before figuring out how to say it, and Bill felt a surge of love for her that she would even try to defend him after this. "I know this does not look good," she began, "but it will be okay. You did not see him before, after the attack. He was like this always. My Stunning spells became very good." She gave a wry smile and paused, taking a deep breath. "And then, one month, it was gone." She snapped her fingers. "I did not believe it. I did not know what to think, but later, he told me: it was because he began to be with Remus, to be intimate." Her voice softened, and Bill remained quiet, not wanting to alert them that he was awake. "That was all he needed," she continued. "Someone to be with him at full moon, to calm him or let him rage. Someone who could not get hurt."

She raised her hand to Lavender's face and stroked her cheek.

"I think I was wrong about you," she said quietly. "I am sorry."

Lavender was silent for a long moment, seeming to let Fleur's magic wash over her and keep her warm. "You were trying to help, when you sent me back there," she began, her chest heaving. "Weren't you?"

Fleur nodded, sweeping her hand up to push the hair off Lavender's face. "I did not know of the things they did to you there, no, but also–" she swallowed, steeling her jaw – "I was too angry that day to care. I am sorry," she repeated, before tilting her head to the side. "But you got out? Again?"

A slow smile spread over Lavender's face. "Yeah," she said, running her tongue over her bottom lip. "Again. Those stupid arses, always underestimating what girls can do."

"I think they are not the only ones," said Fleur, nodding towards Bill and smiling when she saw that he was awake.

"Hey," Lavender interrupted, turning Fleur's face back towards her with a light finger at her jaw. "That day, I mean..." She put her hands up in surrender. "I've never been too good at following rules, especially where sex is involved. I didn't, I mean, I wasn't _trying_ to be a total cunt to you."

Fleur gave a surprised laugh, cupping Lavender's face again and nodding. "I know," she murmured, before turning to Bill again and kneeling down on the grass in front of him.

He held her eyes and nearly broke down from the intensity of it. "I'm sorry," he whispered, reaching for her hand. "I don't even know what to do anymore."

Kneeling, she set her palms flat over her thighs. "I do," she said decisively, nodding at Lavender to join them. "You know how much I dislike to say things like this, but–" she cleared her throat – "I was wrong." She nodded at Lavender, her eyes narrowed. "She _is_ your new Remus."

His mouth opened to object, to reassure her that he was past grieving for Remus, that she was the love of his life, that he needed only her, but he found he couldn't say any of that, and so he closed his lips again, looking away.

"You thought he was here tonight," said Lavender quietly, "in me. You heard his voice, didn't you?"

He glanced up again and met her eyes, nearly gasping at what he saw there. Her gaze was steady, and he felt the strengthening calm radiating out of her, just as he'd always felt from Remus. When he tried to deny what she'd said, he didn't have the energy. "What– is it magic?" he breathed, not even able to identify what he was feeling, but Lavender rolled her eyes, breaking the gravity of the moment.

"Am I Professor Lupin reincarnated?" she said with a laugh. "Uh, no, Weasley. I'm not. But I'm not fucking afraid of you, either, and it seems like I'm the only one around here who's not, yeah? So, sure." She sat back on the grass and flexed her feet. "I can play the big, bad wolf for you." She glanced at Fleur. "If the little wife lets me, that is."

Fleur smiled, shaking her head. "You are mad, you know that? This switching between personalities, it is not healthy!"

Just as quickly as she'd come, the wolf dropped away again, and Lavender grinned at Fleur. "It _wasn't_ healthy, maybe, but I think I've got it now: don't be a cunt to people who are trying to help you, but be a _total_ cunt to those who aren't." She shrugged. "That's not mad; it's just good business."

Bill glanced between the pair of them, these two formidable women who both had such power over him, and an unexpected sense of peace stole over him. He leaned his head back against the tree again and closed his eyes, still feeling the cuts from the whip over his bare back and the pleasant ache of desire fulfilled in his body. He moaned and leaned forward, his eyes still closed, when he felt Fleur's lips brush over his, soft and loving. "I'm sorry," he murmured again, breaking away. "Is Guillermo all right?"

He opened his eyes to find her nodding, her fingers playing in his hair, and he let her cradle his head against her chest, soothing him. "It is good for me to know, perhaps, that he is not so good at defending me if we are attacked." She smiled against the top of his head and he burrowed in deeper against her, mortified.

"I am such an arse." He thought about her words. "But yeah, Jesus, you'd better hope you don't get mugged in Diagon Alley with that bloke."

"One night," whispered Fleur against his hair, her laughter fading, and he felt new hands over the cuts on his back, Lavender's small fingers lightly ghosting over them, teasing him. "Full moon night," she continued, "you two may do what you need to do, wherever you need to do it." Her voice choked off near the end, but she swallowed and took a deep breath. "We made promises to each other knowing there would always be others," she added, and he felt a wave of her magic washing over him, calming him and sealing her in his heart. "If this is what you need, then I cannot stand in your way."

He raised his head at last and took her face between his hands, kissing her like he did on their wedding day and putting all the love and desire he felt for her into the gesture. She clung to him and parted her lips, gasping into his mouth and pulling him in closer, and he knew they would be all right, that he could bring the wolf under control again for her sake, because losing her was not an option, had never been an option. Lavender's hands slipped away, and he was silently grateful to her for giving him this moment with his wife, especially after what she had just agreed to let them do once a month. "I love you," he whispered against Fleur's lips, and she smiled as she always did, nodding and pushing her hair off her shoulders.

"Yes," she murmured. "I know."

* * *

Two nights later, Bill and Fleur were leaving George's shop in the early evening, her hand linked tightly with his against the shadows of the dusk, when Lavender and Fiona passed them on the way to Knockturn.

"Weasley," drawled Lavender, grinning at them. "Keeping busy?"

He rolled his eyes at her and squeezed Fleur's hand. "Yeah," he muttered. "Always."

She glanced up at George's sign, and her brow furrowed. "How's George, by the way?" she asked quietly. "I know what happened to me wasn't the worst of that battle."

A flash of grief passed through Bill at the thought of all he'd lost that night – not only Remus and everything he had meant to Bill, but also Fred, and the way their entire family had been torn apart at his death. "He has his good days and his bad days," said Bill honestly.

"Think he needs some help with that shop, then?" she pressed, and Fleur gasped beside him.

"Yes!" she trilled, clutching Bill's arm. "It is perfect! What do you think?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, I mean, you can ask." A grin tugged at his lips. "Better than living on the dole from me forever."

"Brilliant," she murmured, wetting her lips. "I'll stop by tomorrow. Meantime, I've got a date with Nash in there." She nodded down the alley towards the Ink Drop.

Bill raised an eyebrow. "Making specific dates now? Ahead of time?" He couldn't lie and pretend that old surge of possession didn't crash through his chest at the thought of her going to the club that night and spreading her legs, but somehow it seemed more manageable now, knowing he could still have her the next full moon. He held onto Fleur's hand as if for dear life.

"I owe him," she replied, her voice dark. "He's the only one who knew where to find us, yeah?"

"But you did not need them," said Fleur, her brow creasing. "You were already gone."

Lavender smiled over at Fiona, who blushed, shoving Lavender lightly on the arm. "Yeah," said Lavender. "We didn't need no rescue party. But it was nice of you blokes to try." Her tone fell grave again. "He and his sister got bit at the same time, you know," she said. "Mauled on their way home one night. He got turned out on the streets, but she got put in that ward." She leaned in close as Fiona whispered something to her, and then she nodded, glancing back up at Bill and Fleur. "She died in there."

Bill felt Fleur deflate beside him, sagging against his shoulder, and he wrapped an arm around her. "Jesus," he muttered. "Tell him... thanks, then. For me." He paused, eyeing her. "How _did_ you get out, anyway? And Christ – _twice_?"

Lavender just grinned, slinging an arm around Fiona's shoulders. Ignoring Bill, she let her gaze run down the other girl's body and back up, pausing at the cool flesh of her arm visible under her t-shirt. Neither of them seemed to be shivering in the winter air. Lavender brought her free hand around and pressed her thumb into Fiona's bicep, tilting her head and considering. But she dropped it after another second, leaning in to nuzzle Fiona's neck as the sauntered down the alley towards Knockturn. "Come on, love," she said loudly for Bill's benefit. "Got to see about getting you some ink."

Bill's mouth fell open a little bit as he watched them leave, and with the force of sudden realisation, he let out a bark of laughter, shaking his head. At her questioning look, he wrapped his arm tighter around Fleur's waist and led her off in the opposite direction. "Bowden, that stupid bastard," he muttered, still amazed that he hadn't seen it before. "He's always been worried about _me_ trying to challenge him for power at that place, but he's been worried about the wrong person. He should be worrying about _her_." He nodded back in the direction Lavender had gone, and Fleur laughed, squeezing his arm.

When he rejoined the Ink Drop in two months, he mused, the first thing he'd have to do would be to pay his respects to the new alpha.

The second thing, of course, would be to dig out Remus's old flogger and pay off his debt to Simon. With that thought in his head, he smiled all the way home.

* * *

_A new life, when the night belongs to her, 10:46 p.m.  
_Lava Girl strides – no longer tiptoeing – down Knockturn Alley, her eyes narrowed and her nose in the air. She can smell them. The doors of the businesses along the alley are locked and barred for the night, and the pulsing music she can feel through the soles of her feet hasn't escaped into the black air around her. They won't come out, but now she knows exactly where to find them, how to become one of them, and – most importantly – how to find herself in the process.

Her new life and endless possibilities in front of her, she heads out into the night.

 

-fin-


End file.
